GERMANY 


DESCRIBED  BY  GREAT  WRITERS 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 

SAN  DIEGO 


FROM  AMONG  THE  BOOKS 
OF    T.  W.  K.OEN1G 


GERMANY 


BOOKS  BY  MISS  SINGLETON 

TURRETS,  TOWERS,  AND  TEMPLES.     Great  Buildings  of  the 

World  Described  by  Great  Writers. 
GREAT  PICTURES.     Described  by  Great  Writers. 
WONDERS  OF  NATURE.     Described  by  Great  Writers. 
ROMANTIC    CASTLES    AND    PALACES.     Described   by   Great 

Writers. 

FAMOUS  PAINTINGS.     Described  by  Great  Writers. 
HISTORIC  BUILDINGS.     Described  by  Great  Writers. 
FAMOUS  WOMEN.     Described  by  Great  Writers. 
GREAT  PORTRAITS.     Described  by  Great  Writers. 
HISTORIC    BUILDINGS   OF   AMERICA.     Described  by   Great 

Writers. 

HOLLAND.     Described  by  Great  Writers. 
PARIS.     Described  by  Great  Writers. 
LONDON.     Described  by  Great  Writers. 
RUSSIA.     Described  by  Great  Writers. 
JAPAN.     Described  by  Great  Writers. 
VENICE.     Described  by  Great  Writers. 
ROME.     Described  by  Great  Writers. 
A  GUIDE  TO  THE  OPERA. 
LOVE  IN  LITERATURE  AND  ART, 
THE  GOLDEN  ROD  FAIRY  BOOK. 
THE  WILD  FLOWER  FAIRY  BOOK. 
GERMANY. 


GERMANY 

As  Described  by 
Great  Writers 


Collected  and  Edited  by 

ESTHER   SINGLETON 


WITH   NUMEROUS   ILLUSTRATIONS 

1  1  I  'I  I'  1  1  I  M  1  11  II  II  II  II  II  I  I  I  •!•  'I  1  till  II'  I 


Copyright,  7907, 

BY  DODD,  MEAD  &  COMPANY 

Published  September,  1907 


PREFACE 

THIS  book  is  planned  on  the  same  lines  as  my  former 
ones  in  this  series — Holland,  Japan  and  Russia — 
and  with  the  same  aim  in  view, — that  of  giving 
the  tourist  and  general  reader  a  comprehensive  glimpse  of 
an  important  country. 

The  task  of  selection  has  not  been  an  easy  one,  for  Ger- 
many is  so  rich  in  picturesque  cities,  fine  architecture,  well 
stocked  museums  and  art-galleries,  beautiful  scenery,  and 
legendary  rivers,  lakes,  forests  and  mountains,  that  it  is 
difficult  to  omit  places  that  command  admiration. 

The  limitations  of  a  small  book,  however,  admit  only  of 
a  bird's-eye  view  of  so  large  and  great  a  country  as  Ger- 
many ;  and  in  my  selections  I  have  had  to  keep  to  general 
and  avoid  special  descriptions,  as  a  rule.  A  brief  glance  at 
the  topography  of  the  country  and  a  historical  review  of  its 
people  is,  therefore,  followed  by  descriptions  of  the  four 
kingdoms  and  their  capitals.  A  few  other  cities  are  added, 
together  with  Heligoland,  the  Rhine,  and  the  famous  Harz, 
Black  and  Thuringian  forests.  The  next  groups  of  essays 
deal  with  social  life  ;  and  brief  surveys  of  painting,  music, 
politics,  and  the  development  of  modern  industrial  Germany 
close  what  might  be  termed  a  rapid  run  through  this  most 
interesting  country. 

E.  S. 

New  York)  September,  1907. 


CONTENTS 

PART  I 

The  Country  and  Race 
THE  COUNTRY i 

FlNDLAY  MuiRHEAD. 

THE  RACE    .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .  13 

JAMES  SIME. 

PART  II 

Descriptions 
PRUSSIA         .........       29 

FINDLAY  MUIRHEAD. 
THE  KAISER'S  CAPITAL   .         .         .         .         .         .         -35 

G.  W.  STEEVENS. 
FRANKFURT-ON-THE-MAIN        ......       41 

S.  G.  GREEN. 
COLOGNE      .........       46 

R.  A.  HOZIER. 
HELIGOLAND          ........       55 

G.  W.  STEEVENS. 
MECKLENBURG       .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .61 

MAURICE  TODHUNTER. 
HAMBURG     .........       66 

ARTHUR  SHADWELL  MARTIN. 
THE  HARZ  MOUNTAINS  .......       70 

HENRY  BLACKBURN. 


CONTENTS 

THE  ILSENSTEIN     ........       84 

HEINRICH  HEINE. 

SAXONY 9° 

FINDLAY  MUIRHEAD. 

DRESDEN       .........       96 

ARTHUR  SHADWELL  MARTIN. 

THURINGIA  ........       99 

FLORENCE  ELYE  NORRIS. 

BAVARIA "o 

GERTRUDE  NORMAN. 

MUNICH "7 

GERTRUDE  NORMAN. 

NUREMBERG 123 

GERTRUDE  NORMAN. 

OBERAMMERGAU     .         .         .         .         •         •         •  *33 

GERTRUDE  NORMAN. 

AUGSBURG     .         .         .         .         •         •         •         •  13% 

GERTRUDE  NORMAN. 

REGENSBURG  .         .         •         •         •         •         •  J43 

GERTRUDE  NORMAN. 

ROTHENBURG  AND  OTHER  BAVARIAN  TOWNS       .         .         .     147 
GERTRUDE  NORMAN. 

BAYREUTH    .         .         .         .         .         •         •         «         •     I5l 

GERTRUDE  NORMAN. 

WURTEMBERG        .         .         .         .         •         •         •  *54 

FINDLAY  MUIRHEAD. 

STUTTGART  .         .         .         .         .         •         •         «         .160 

DR.  R.  ELBEN. 

THE  BLACK  FOREST         .         .         .         .'       .         .         .165 
JOHN  STOUGHTON. 


CONTENTS 

THE  RHINE  .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .  179 

VICTOR  HUGO. 

THE  BANKS  OF  THE  RHINE        .         .         .         .         .         .186 

F.  WILLIAMSON. 

STRASBURG 194 

VICTOR  HUGO. 


PART  III 

Manners  and  Customs 

IN  THE  KAISER'S  COUNTRY       .         .         .         .         .         .201 

G.  W.  STEEVENS. 

THE  HIGHER  NOBILITY  .......     206 

S.  BARING-GOULD. 

THE  LOWER  NOBILITY    .         .         .         .         .         .         .219 

S.  BARING-GOULD. 

VILLAGE  LIFE  IN  GERMANY      ......     228 

A.  F.  SLACK. 

A  GERMAN  HOLIDAY  ......  .     244 

G.  W.  STEEVENS. 

ON  THE  GERMAN  ARMY  ......     250 

G.  W.  STEEVENS. 

AT  THE  KAISER  MANOEUVRES    ......     256 

G.  W.  STEEVENS. 

STUDENT  LIFE        ........     263 

A.  H.  BAYNES. 

How  TO  BE  A  GERMAN 277 

G.  W.  STEEVENS. 

WHAT  A  GERMAN  MAY  NOT  Do      .....     283 

G.  W.  STEEVENS. 


CONTENTS 

PART  IV 
Painting  and  Music 

PAINTING      .........     289 

MRS.  CHARLES  HEATON. 

Music  .........     303 

ESTHER  SINGLETON. 

PART  V 

Modern  Germany 

GERMANY  OF  TO-DAY    .          .          .         .         .          .         .     317 

MRS.  ALEC  TWEEDIE. 

THE   PROGRESS   OF  GERMANY  SINCE  THE   FRANCO-PRUSSIAN 

WAR 324 

ARTHUR  SHADWELL  MARTIN. 

STATISTICS    .         . 332 

E.  S. 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Frankfurt-on-the-Main    .....  Frontispiece 

Bremen         .......  Facing  page  6 

Hcrrcnhauser  Alice,  Hanover  .         .         .         .""13 

Konigstein,  The  Taunus          .         .         .  "  "  30 

Sans  Souci,  Potsdam       .         .         .         .  "  "  34 

Unter  den  Linden,  Berlin        .         .         .         .  "  "  36 

The  Roemer  Hall,  Frankfurt-on-the-Main          .  "  "  42 

Cologne "  "  46 

Bird's-Eye  View  of  Heligoland         .         .  "  "  56 

Rugen "  "  62 

Hamburg "  "  66 

Brockenhaus,  Harz          .         .         .         .  "  "  70 

The  Ilsenstein,  Harz "  "  84 

Saxon  Switzerland           .         .         .         .  "  "  90 

Dresden "  "  96 

Eisenach  and  The  Wartburg    .         .         .         .  "  "  100 

Bodensee  (Lake  Constance)    .         .         .  "  "  no 

Marienplatz,  Munich "  "  118 

The  Castle,  Nuremberg           .         .         .  "  "  124 

Augsburg      .         .     ' "  "  138 

Regensburg  .         .         .         „         .         .         .  "  "  144 

Rothenburg "  "  148 

Bayreuth "  "  152 

Wildbad "  "  154 

Royal  Palace,  Stuttgart "  "  160 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Baden-Baden  from  Neue  Schloss       .         .         .  Facing  page  166 

Brunnhilde's  Bed,  Feldberg      .         .         .                 "        "  174 

Falls  of  the  Rhine,  Schaffhausen       .         .         .        "        "  1 80 

Heidelberg   .         .         .         .         .         .                 "        "  184 

Rolandseck  and  the  Seven  Mountains        .         .        "        ««  188 

Lurlei  Rock "        "  192 

Strasburg      .......""  194 

Alexanderplatz  and  Konigstrasse,  Berlin     .                 "        "  202 

Oldenburg "        "  206 

The  Castle,  Heidelberg           .         .         .                 "        "  220 
Schiller's  House,  Weimar        .         .         .         .        "        "228 

Nordeney     .......""  244 

Cavalry,  German  Army           .         .         .                 "        "  250 

Infantry,  German  Army          .         .         .         .        **       **  256 

University,  Halle  ......""  264 

Wurzburg tt        a  2y% 

Stettin tt        m  283 

Albrecht  Durer's  House,  Nuremberg         .                 "        "  290 

The  Wartburg,  Eisenach         .         .         .                 "        ««  304 

The  Reichstag,  Berlin "        "  318 

Kiel «  324 

William  II.,  Emperor  of  Germany  .         .                 "        "  332 
Augusta  Victoria,  Empress  of  Germany    .         .        "        "336 


THE  COUNTRY 

FINDLAT  MUIRHEAD 

GERMANY  presents  two  very  distinct  physical  for- 
mations :  i .  A  range  of  high  table-land,  occupy- 
ing the  centre  and  southern  parts  of  the  country, 
interspersed  with  numerous  ranges  and  groups  of  mountains, 
the  most  important  of  which  are  the  Harz  and  Teuto- 
burgherwald  in  the  north ;  the  Taunus  and  Thuringerwald 
in  the  middle ;  and  the  Schwarzwald  and  Rauhe  Alps  in  the 
south ;  and  containing  an  area,  including  Alsace  and  Lor- 
raine of  110,000  square  miles.  2.  A  vast  sandy  plain, 
which  extends  from  the  centre  of  the  Empire  north  to  the 
German  Ocean,  and  including  Sleswig-Holstein,  contains  an 
area  of  about  98,000  square  miles.  This  great  plain 
stretching  from  the  Russian  frontier  on  the  east  to  the 
Netherlands  on  the  west,  is  varied  by  two  terrace-like 
elevations.  The  one  stretches  from  the  Vistula  into  Meck- 
lenburg, at  no  great  distance  from  the  coast  of  the  Baltic, 
and  has  a  mean  elevation  of  500  to  600  feet,  rising  in 
one  point  near  Danzig  to  1,020  feet ;  the  other  line  of  eleva- 
tions begins  in  Silesia  and  terminates  in  the  moorlands  of 
Luneburg,  in  Hanover,  its  course  being  marked  by  several 
summits  from  500  to  800  feet  in  height.  A  large  por- 
tion of  the  plain  is  occupied  by  sandy  tracts  interspersed 
with  deposits  of  peat ;  but  other  parts  are  moderately  fertile, 
and  admit  of  successful  cultivation. 

In  respect  to  drainage,  the  surface  of  Germany  belongs 
to  three  different  basins.     The  Danube,  from  its  source  in 

i 


2  GERMANY 

the  Schwarzwald  to  the  borders  of  Austria  belongs  to 
Germany,  and  through  this  channel  the  waters  of  the 
greater  part  of  Bavaria  are  poured  into  the  Black  Sea, — 
thus  opening  up  communication  with  the  East.  By  far 
the  greater  part  of  the  surface,  however  (about  185,000 
square  miles),  has  a  northern  slope,  and  belongs  partly  to 
the  basin  of  the  North  Sea  and  partly  to  the  basin  of  the 
Baltic.  The  chief  German  streams  flowing  into  the  North 
Sea  are  the  Rhine,  the  Weser,  and  the  Elbe ;  into  the 
Baltic,  the  Oder  and  the  Vistula. 

Among  the  most  important  of  the  canals  are  the  Lud- 
wig's  canal  in  Bavaria,  uniting  the  Danube  with  the  Main  ; 
the  system  connecting  the  Memel  with  the  Pregel;  that 
joining  the  Oder  with  the  Elbe;  the  Plauen  canal,  con- 
necting the  Elbe  with  the  Havel ;  the  Eider  canal,  con- 
necting the  Eider  with  Kiel;  the  Rhine-Rhone,  and  the 
Rhine-Marne,  in  Alsace-Lorraine ;  the  Baltic  Sea,  or  Kaiser 
Wilhelm's  canal,  begun  in  1887  and  opened  for  traffic 
June  19,  1895;  and  several  other  canals  in  process  of  con- 
struction. There  are  numerous  lakes  in  Germany,  but  few 
of  them  are  of  large  size.  In  the  low  northern  districts 
there  are  extensive  swamps  and  marsh-lands.  Numerous 
springs  occur  chiefly  in  Nassau,  Wurtemburg,  Baden, 
Bavaria,  and  Rhenish  Prussia. 

Germany,  from  the  Latin  Germania  is  the  English  name 
of  the  country  which  the  natives  call  Deutschland  and  the 
French  L'  Allemagne.  The  word  is  sometimes  used  to  de- 
note the  whole  area  of  the  European  continent  within 
which  the  Germanic  race  and  language  are  dominant.  In 
this  broad  sense,  it  includes,  besides  Germany  proper,  parts 
of  Austria,  Switzerland,  and  perhaps  even  of  the  Nether- 
lands j  but  in  the  present  article  the  name  is  to  be  under- 


THE  COUNTRY  3 

stood  as  denoting  the  existing  Germanic  Empire,  of  which 
Prussia  is  the  head. 

Germany  is  composed  of  an  aggregation  of  different 
states  (twenty-six  in  number)  :  Kingdom  of  Prussia ;  King- 
dom of  Bavaria;  Kingdom  of  Wiirtemberg ;  Kingdom  of 
Saxony ;  Grand-duchy  of  Baden ;  Grand-duchy  of  Meck- 
lenberg-Schwerin  ;  Grand-duchy  of  Hesse  ;  Grand-duchy 
of  Oldenburg ;  Grand-duchy  of  Saxe- Weimar ;  Grand- 
duchy  of  Mecklenberg-Strelitz ;  Duchy  of  Brunswick ; 
Duchy  of  Saxe-Meiningen ;  Duchy  of  Anhalt ;  Duchy  of 
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha ;  Duchy  of  Saxe-Altenburg ;  Princi- 
pality of  Waldeck;  Principality  of  Lippe-Detmold ; 
Principality  of  Schwartzburg-Rudolstadt ;  Principality  of 
Schwartzburg-Sondershausen  ;  Principality  of  Reuss-Schleiz; 
Principality  of  Schaumburg-Lippe ;  Principality  of  Reuss- 
Greiz ;  Free-town  of  Hamburg  ;  Free-town  of  Lubeck ; 
Free-town  of  Bremen  ;  and  Reichsland  of  Alsace-Lorraine. 

Besides  the  above  political  divisions  there  are  certain 
distinctive  appellations  applied  to  different  parts  of  Ger- 
many, which  have  been  derived  either  from  the  names  and 
settlements  of  the  ancient  Germanic  tribes,  or  from  the 
circles  and  other  great  subdivisions  of  the  old  empire. 
Thus  the  name  of  "  Swabia "  is  still  applied  in  common 
parlance  to  the  districts  embracing  the  greater  part  of 
Wiirtemberg,  southern  Baden,  south-western  Bavaria,  and 
Hohenzollern ;  "  Franconia  "  to  the  Maine  districts  of 
Bamberg,  Schweinfurt,  and  Wurtzburg  ;  the  "  Palatinate," 
Rhenish  Bavaria  and  the  north  of  Baden  ;  "  the  Rhine- 
land,"  to  portions  of  Baden,  Rhenish  Prussia,  Bavaria, 
Hesse-Darmstadt,  and  Nassau ;  "  Voigtland,"  to  the  high 
ground  between  Hof  and  Plauen ;  "  Thuringia,"  to  the 
districts  lying  between  the  upper  Saale  and  the  Werra,  as 


4  GERMANY 

Saxe- Weimar,  etc.,  "  Lusatia,"  to  the  eastern  part  of 
Saxony ;  "  East  Friesland,"  to  the  country  between  the 
lower  Weser  and  Ems  ;  and  "  Westphalia,"  to  the  district 
extending  between  lower  Saxony,  the  Netherlands,  Thurin- 
gia,  and  Hesse,  to  the  German  ocean. 

By  far  the  greater  part  of  the  population  of  this  country 
are  of  the  race  called,  in  English,  Germans,  in  French, 
Allemands,  but  by  the  people  themselves  Deutsche.  The 
term  Deutsch,  in  Gothic  thiudisk^  in  O.  H.  Ger.  diutisc 
(Latinized  into  tbeotiscus\  is  derived  from  the  Gothic  sub- 
stantive tbiuda,  people,  and  therefore  meant  originally  the 
popular  language,  or  in  the  mouth  of  the  learned,  the  vulgar 
tongue.  In  the  Twelfth  and  Thirteenth  Centuries,  it  be- 
came elevated  into  the  accepted  designation  both  of  this 
wide-spread  tongue  and  of  the  race  that  speak  it.  The 
Germans  admit  of  being  divided  into  High  and  Low  Ger- 
mans; the  phraseology  of  the  former  is  the  cultivated 
language  of  all  the  German  states ;  that  of  the  latter  known 
as  Platt-Deutschj  is  spoken  in  the  north  and  north-west. 
The  Poles  are  found  exclusively  in  the  east  and  north-east 
of  Prussia;  the  Czechs,  in  Silesia,  about  Oppeln  and 
Breslau ;  the  Wends,  in  Silesia,  Brandenburg,  and  Prussian 
Lusatia;  the  Lithuanians  and  Courlanders,  in  east  Prussia; 
the  Danes,  in  Slesvig ;  the  Walloons,  about  Aix-la-Chapelle, 
in  Rhenish  Prussia;  and  the  French,  partly  in  the  same 
region,  and  partly  in  the  newly  re-acquired  provinces  of 
Alsace  and  Lorraine.  Although  the  Jews  are  scattered 
over  every  part  of  Germany,  they  are  most  numerous  in 
the  Prussian  territories. 

Germany  is  rich  in  mineral  products,  among  which  the 
most  important  are  silver,  found  in  Saxony,  Mansfeld  and 
the  Harz  Mountains ;  iron  in  various  parts  of  the  country ; 


THE  COUNTRY  5 

salt  especially  in  Prussia,  Bavaria,  Wurtemberg  and  Lor- 
raine ;  coal  in  Rhenish  Prussia,  Silesia,  south-western  Ger- 
many and  Saxony.  Cobalt,  lead,  arsenic,  bismuth,  nickel, 
zinc,  manganese,  tin,  quicksilver,  antimony,  etc.,  are  also 
found,  and  several  of  these  minerals  are  important  items  in 
the  list  of  German  exports.  The  vegetable  products  com- 
prise a  very  large  proportion  of  the  European  flora.  All 
the  ordinary  cereals  are  extensively  cultivated  in  the  north, 
and  largely  exported,  chiefly  from  Wurtemberg  and  Bavaria ; 
hemp  and  flax,  madder,  woad,  and  saffron,  grow  well  in  the 
central  districts,  where  the  vine,  the  cultivation  of  which 
extends,  in  suitable  localities,  as  far  north  as  51°,  is  brought  to 
great  perfection,  the  best  wine-producing  districts  being  the 
valleys  of  the  Danube,  Rhine,  Main,  Neckar,  and  Moselle, 
which  are,  moreover,  generally  noted  for  the  excellence  of 
their  fruits  and  vegetables.  Tobacco  is  grown,  especially 
on  the  Upper  Rhine,  and  the  Neckar  in  Baden,  the  Baltic 
provinces  and  in  middle  Franconia.  The  hops  of  southern 
Germany  and  Posen  have  a  high  reputation.  Bavaria  is 
especially  successful  in  the  raising  of  this  crop.  The  most 
extensive  forests  are  found  in  Central  Germany,  and  in 
some  parts  of  Prussia,  while  the  north-western  parts  of 
the  great  plain  are  deficient  in  wood,  the  place  of  which 
is  in  some  degree  supplied  by  the  abundance  of  turf 
yielded  by  the  marshy  lands.  In  1893  the  area  under 
forests  was  estimated  at  25.8  per  cent,  of  the  entire  coun- 
try. Germany  has  long  been  noted  for  the  good  breed  of 
horses  raised  in  the  northern  parts  of  the  continent;  while 
Saxony,  Silesia,  and  Brandenburg  have  an  equal  reputation 
for  their  sheep-flocks,  and  the  fine  quality  of  the  wool 
which  they  yield.  The  rich  alluvial  flats  of  Mecklenburg 
and  Hanover  are  celebrated  for  their  cattle  ;  the  forests  of 


6  GERMANY 

Northern  and  Central  Germany  abound  in  swine,  and  in 
small  game  of  various  kinds;  while  the  Bavarian  Alps 
afford  shelter  to  the  larger  animals,  as  the  chamois,  the  red 
deer  and  wild  goat,  the  fox,  marten,  and  wolf  j  and  in  all 
the  plains  in  the  north,  storks,  wild-geese,  and  ducks  are 
abundant.  Among  the  fishes  of  Germany,  the  most  gen- 
erally distributed  are  carp,  salmon,  trout,  and  eels,  the 
rivers  contain  also  cray-fish,  pearl-bearing  mussels,  and 
leeches.  The  German  fisheries  are  not  especially  im- 
portant so  far  as  the  numbers  engaged  in  them  are  con- 
cerned. Cod  and  herring,  however,  are  taken  in  the  North 
Sea,  and  the  Baltic  fisheries  are  valuable.  Germany  stands 
next  to  Great  Britain  in  regard  to  the  care  and  success 
with  which  its  agricultural,  mining,  and  other  natural  capa- 
bilities have  been  cultivated.  All  the  German  states  en- 
courage agriculture,  and  have  endeavoured,  by  the  establish- 
ment of  agricultural  colleges  and  exhibitions,  to  diffuse 
among  the  people  a  knowledge  of  recent  scientific  appli- 
ances. The  countries  which  have  become  most  conspicu- 
ous in  this  movement  are  Prussia,  Bavaria,  and  Saxony. 
The  preservation  and  cultivation  of  woods  receive  almost 
as  much  attention  in  Germany  as  agriculture,  and  like  the 
latter,  are  elevated  to  the  rank  of  a  science.  The  larger 
woods  and  forests  in  most  of  the  states  belong  to  the  gov- 
ernment, and  are  under  the  care  of  special  boards  of  man- 
agement, which  exercise  the  right  of  supervision  and  con- 
trol over  all  forest  lands,  whether  public  or  private. 

The  oldest  and  most  important  of  the  German  industrial 
arts  are  the  manufactures  of  linen  and  woollen  goods.  The 
chief  localities  for  the  cultivation  and  preparation  of  flax 
and  the  weaving  of  linen  fabrics  are  the  mountain-valleys 
of  Silesia,  Lusatia,  Westphalia  and  the  Harz,  and  Saxony 


THE  COUNTRY  7 

(for  thread-laces);  while  cotton  fabrics  are  principally 
made  in  Rhenish  Prussia  and  Saxony.  The  same  districts 
together  with  Pomerania  and  Bavaria,  manufacture  the 
choicest  woollen  fabrics,  including  damasks  and  carpets. 
Since  the  formation  of  the  Empire,  the  textile  industries 
have  made  remarkable  progress,  and  the  German  manufac- 
tures now  hold  the  home  market,  and  export  to  South 
America,  Australia,  the  East,  and  even  to  England.  Every 
effort  is  made  to  advance  the  competing  power  of  the  Ger- 
man manufacturer  in  foreign  markets.  The  manufacture 
of  toys,  wooden  clocks,  and  wood-carvings,  which  may  be 
regarded  almost  as  a  specialty  of  German  industry,  is  car- 
ried on  in  the  hilly  districts  of  Saxony,  in  Bavaria,  Wur- 
temberg  and  the  Black  Forest.  Great  progress  has  been 
made  in  the  manufacture  of  machinery.  The  iron  and 
steel  manufactures  of  Germany  are  among  the  most  im- 
portant in  the  world.  The  chief  seats  of  these  industries 
are  in  Prussia,  Saxony,  Bavaria,  Alsace-Lorraine  and 
Silesia.  Silesia,  Saxony  and  Prussia  rank  first  in  the  pro- 
duction of  glass,  china  and  earthenware.  The  manufacture 
of  paper,  chemicals  and  leather  are  all  important  industries. 
In  silver,  gold  and  jewelry-work,  Augsburg  and  Nuremberg 
dispute  with  Munich  and  Berlin  the  title  to  pre-eminence, 
and  the  manufacture  of  scientific  and  musical  instruments 
is  especially  important  in  these  cities ;  while  Leipzig  and 
Munich  are  among  the  leading  cities  of  Europe  in  respect 
to  type-foundries,  printing  and  lithography. 

Education  is  more  generally  diffused  in  Germany  than  in 
any  other  country  of  Europe,  and  is  cultivated  with  an 
earnest  and  systematic  devotion  not  met  with  to  an  equal 
extent  among  other  nations.  There  are  twenty-one  uni- 
versities :  Berlin,  Breslau,  Halle,  Bonn,  Greifswald, 


8  GERMANY 

Munster,  Munich,  Wiirtzburg,  Erlangen,  Leipzig,  Tubin- 
gen, Gottingen,  Heidelberg,  Freiburg,  Marburg,  Giessen, 
Jena,  Rostock,  Kiel,  Konigsberg  and  Strasburg.  The  at- 
tendance of  children  at  school  for  at  least  four  or  five  years 
is  made  compulsory  in  nearly  all  of  the  German  states,  and 
hence  the  proportion  of  persons  who  cannot  read  and  write 
is  exceedingly  small  in  Germany. 

There  are  numerous  public  libraries,  museums,  botanical 
gardens,  art-collections,  picture-galleries,  schools  of  music 
and  design  ;  and  academies  of  arts  and  sciences,  are  to  be 
met  with  in  most  of  the  capitals  and  in  many  of  the  coun- 
try towns.  In  no  country  is  the  book  and  publishing  trade 
more  universally  patronized  than  in  Germany.  Numerous 
papers  and  journals  are  circulated  throughout  the  empire ; 
of  the  current  newspapers,  a  comparatively  small  number 
only  exert  any  marked  influence,  but  many  of  the  German 
scientific  and  literary  periodicals  enjoy  a  world-wide  reputa- 
tion. The  censorship  of  the  press  was  abolished  by  a 
decree  of  the  diet  of  1848,  and  freedom  of  the  press,  under 
certain  restrictions,  which  were  promulgated  in  1854,  has 
been  introduced. 

By  the  constitution  of  April  16,  1871,  the  Prussian  obli- 
gation to  serve  in  the  army  is  extended  to  the  whole  em- 
pire. It  is  provided  that  every  German  who  is  webrfdhig, 
t.  e.,  "  capable  of  bearing  arms,"  is  liable  to  service ;  "  no 
substitution  is  allowed."  Of  the  six  years  (seven  for  the 
cavalry  and  field-horse  artillery)  two  must  be  spent  in  active 
service  (bei  den  Fahneri),  and  the  remainder  in  the  army  of 
reserve.  On  quitting  the  army  of  reserve,  he  has  to  form 
part  of  the  landwebr  for  other  five  years  in  the  first  class  or 
"  ban,"  and  seven  years  in  the  second  "  ban."  Article  63 
enacts  that  die  gesammte  Landmackt  des  Reichs  wird  tin 


THE  COUNTRY  9 

einbeitlicbes  Heer  bilden,  welches  im  Krieg  und  Frieden  unter 
dem  Befehle  des  Kaisers  steht  ("  the  whole  land  forces  of 
the  empire  shall  form  a  united  army,  in  war  and  peace, 
under  the  command  of  the  emperor ").  The  sovereigns 
of  the  principal  states  have  the  right  to  select  the 
lower  grades  of  officers,  but  even  their  selections  require 
to  obtain  the  approval  of  the  emperor,  whose  authority  is 
paramount ;  article  64  expressly  declaring  that  alle  deutscben 
Truppen  sind  verpflichtet  den  Befehlen  des  Kaisers  unbedingt 
Folge  zu  leisten  ("  all  German  troops  are  bound  to  obey  un- 
conditionally the  orders  of  the  emperor  "). 

The  formation  of  a  German  navy,  due  to  the  initiative 
of  Prussia,  dates  from  1848,  and  of  late  years  rapid  progress 
has  been  made. 

Since  1884,  Germany  has  been  extending  her  Empire 
beyond  the  bounds  of  Europe,  owing  to  the  policy  initiated 
in  that  year  by  Prince  Bismarck.  She  has,  as  yet,  no 
colonies  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  but  she  has  estab- 
lished a  number  of  protectorates  and  "  spheres  of  influ- 
ence "  in  Africa  and  the  Pacific. 

All  the  states  of  the  empire  recognize  four  distinct  orders 
. — viz.,  the  nobility,  clergy,  burghers,  and  peasantry,  and 
all  distinguish  three  distinct  grades  of  nobility.  The 
highest  of  these  includes  the  members  of  reigning  houses, 
and  the  descendants  of  families  who  belonged  at  the  time 
of  the  old  empire  to  the  sovereign  nobility  of  the  state, 
and  were  reichsunmittelbar,  or  directly  connected  with  the 
empire,  as  holding  their  domains  directly  under  the  em- 
peror, but  whose  houses  have  subsequently  been  mediatized, 
or  deprived  of  sovereign  power  in  accordance  with  special 
treaties  between  the  state  and  princes.  There  are  at  pres- 
ent fifty  princely  and  fifty-one  graftiche  (countly)  mediatized 


10  GERMANY 

families,  who,  in  accordance  with  the  act  of  the  diet  of 
1806,  have  equality  of  rank  with  reigning  houses,  and  en- 
joy many  of  the  special  privileges  which  were  accorded  to 
the  high  nobles  of  the  empire.  The  second  grade  of  no- 
bility is  composed  of  counts  and  barons  not  belonging  to 
reigning  or  mediatized  houses,  whilst  the  third  and  lowest 
grade  includes  the  knights  and  land-owners. 

Before  we  proceed  to  consider  the  political  organization 
of  the  new  Germanic  empire,  we  will  briefly  describe — first, 
the  principal  features  of  the  constitution  of  the  old  Ger- 
manic empire,  which  was  overthrown  by  the  first  Napoleon, 
in  1806;  and  second,  that  bund  or  federal  government 
which  lasted  from  1814  to  1866,  when  Austria  was  ex- 
cluded from  the  confederation,  and  the  hegemony  of  Ger- 
many was  transferred  to  Prussia. 

The  states  of  this  empire  comprised  three  chambers  or 
colleges  :  i.  The  electoral  college,  which  consisted  of  the 
archiepiscopal  electors  of  Mainz,  Treves,  and  Cologne ; 
and  the  secular  electors,  of  whom  there  were  originally 
only  four,  but  whose  number  was  subsequently  increased  to 
five,  and  who,  at  the  dissolution  of  the  empire,  were  repre- 
sented by  the  sovereigns  of  Bohemia,  Bavaria,  Saxony, 
Brandenburg,  and  Brunswick-Luneburg  or  Hanover.  2. 
The  college  of  the  princes  of  the  empire,  who  had  each  a 
vote  in  the  diet,  and  were  divided  into  spiritual  and 
temporal  princes.  3.  The  free  imperial  cities  which 
formed  a  college  at  the  diet,  divided  into  two  benches,  the 
Rhenish  with  fourteen  cities,  and  the  Swabian  with  thirty- 
seven  ;  each  of  which  had  a  vote.  These  colleges,  each 
of  which  voted  separately,  formed  the  diet  of  the  empire. 
When  their  respective  decisions  agreed,  the  matter  under 
discussion  was  submitted  to  the  emperor,  who  could  refuse 


THE  COUNTRY  11 

his  ratification  of  the  decisions  of  the  diet,  although  he  had 
no  power  to  modify  them.  Ordinary  meetings  were  usually 
summoned  twice  a  year  by  the  emperor,  who  specified  the 
place  at  which  the  sittings  were  to  be  held,  and  which,  dur- 
ing the  latter  periods  of  the  empire,  were  at  Regensburg 
(Ratisbon).  The  diet  had  the  right  to  enact,  abrogate,  or 
modify  laws,  conclude  peace  and  declare  war,  and  impose 
taxes  for  the  general  expenses  of  the  state.  The  Aulic 
chamber,  and  the  cameral  or  chief  tribunal  of  the  empire, 
decided  in  cases  of  dispute  between  members  of  the  diet. 
The  emperors  were  chosen  by  the  electors  in  person  or  by 
their  deputies  ;  and  after  their  election  and  coronation,  both 
of  which  usually  took  place  at  Frankfort-on-the-Main,  the 
emperor  swore  to  the  "  capitulation  "  or  constitution  of  the 
empire.  After  the  dissolution  of  the  empire,  in  1806,  its 
place  was  nominally  taken  by  the  confederation  of  the 
Rhine,  which  owed  its  existence  to  Napoleon,  and  which 
lasted  till  1815. 

The  late  Germanic  confederation  was  established  by  an 
act  of  the  congress  of  Vienna  in  1815,  on  the  overthrow 
of  Napoleon.  It  was  an  indissoluble  union,  from  which 
no  single  state  could  at  its  own  pleasure  retire.  Its  central 
point  and  its  executive  and  legislative  powers  were  repre- 
sented by  the  federative  diet,  which  held  its  meetings  at 
Frankfort-on-the-Main,  and  was  composed  of  delegates 
from  all  the  confederate  states  chosen,  not  by  the  people, 
but  by  the  various  governments. 

The  seventy-ninth  article  of  the  constitution  of  the 
North  German  Confederation  provided  for  the  admission 
of  the  South  German  states  into  the  new  bund ;  and  the 
war  between  France  and  Germany,  which  broke  out  in 
July,  1870,  and  in  which  all  the  German  princes  and  peo- 


12  GERMANY 

pies  took  part,  gave  an  irresistible  impetus  to  the  desire  for 
national  unity.  On  Nov.  15,  1870,  the  Grand-duchies  of 
Baden  and  Hesse  joined  the  bund ;  Bavaria  followed  on  the 
23d,  and  Wurtemberg  on  the  25th  of  the  same  month. 
Shortly  after,  the  King  of  Bavaria  wrote  a  letter  to  the  King 
of  Prussia,  urging  him  to  re-establish  the  German  Empire. 
This  brought  the  question  under  the  notice  of  the  bund ;  and 
on  December  10,  1870,  it  was  agreed  by  188  votes  to  6,  that 
the  Empire  should  be  restored,  and  that  the  King  of  Prussia 
should  be  acknowledged  hereditary  Emperor  of  Germany. 
The  latter  solemnly  accepted  the  new  dignity  at  Versailles, 
January  18,  1871. 

There  are  two  legislative  bodies  in  the  Empire — the 
Bundesrath,  or  federal  council,  the  members  of  which  are 
annually  appointed  by  the  governments  of  the  various 
states ;  and  the  Reichstag,  the  members  of  which  are 
elected  by  universal  suffrage  and  ballot  for  a  period  of  three 
years.  All  imperial  laws  must  receive  the  votes  of  an  ab- 
solute majority  of  both  bodies,  and,  to  be  valid,  must,  in 
addition,  have  the  assent  of  the  Emperor,  and  be  counter- 
signed when  promulgated  by  the  Reichskanzler,  or  chancellor 
of  the  Empire,  who  is  ex-officio,  president  of  the  Bundesrath. 

According  to  the  eleventh  article  of  the  Constitution, 
the  German  Emperor,  with  the  consent  of  the  Bundesrath) 
can  declare  war,  make  peace,  enter  into  treaties  with  foreign 
nations,  and  appoint  and  receive  ambassadors.  If,  how- 
ever, the  territory  of  the  Empire  is  attacked,  he  does  not 
require  the  consent  of  the  Bundesrath  to  declare  war,  but 
can  act  independently. 


THE  RACE 

JAMES  SIME 

GERMANY,  or  Deutschland,  occupies  a  large  part 
of  central  Europe.  Speaking  roughly,  it  now 
reaches  from  the  Alps  to  the  Baltic  and  the  North 
Sea,  and  from  the  valleys  of  the  Rhine  and  the  Meuse  to 
the  Danube  as  far  as  the  March  and  the  Mur,  and  to  the 
Prosna  and  the  Lower  Niemen.  The  country  is  moun- 
tainous in  the  south,  hilly  in  the  centre,  and  flat  in  the 
north,  where  it  forms  part  of  the  great  plain  which  takes 
in  the  whole  of  north-eastern  Europe.  The  western  part 
of  this  plain  takes  in  the  country  between  the  Teutoburg 
Wood  and  the  North  Sea.  As  it  passes  eastwards  it  widens 
till  it  reaches  from  the  Erz  and  Riesen  Mountains  to  the 
Baltic.  A  part  of  South  Germany  slopes  towards  the  east, 
and  is  watered  by  the  Danube ;  but  the  general  slope  of  the 
country  is  towards  the  north.  Among  the  rivers  flowing 
northwards  are  the  Rhine,  the  Ems,  the  Weser,  the  Elbe, 
the  Oder,  and  the  Vistula. 

Germany  has  varied  very  much  in  extent  at  different 
times.  This  is  due  partly  to  the  fact  that  it  has  no  clearly- 
marked  natural  boundaries  on  the  east  and  west,  but  chiefly 
to  the  peculiarity  of  its  position.  It  is  the  central  country 
of  Europe.  Being  surrounded  by  most  of  the  leading 
nations  of  the  Continent,  the  Germans  have  been  involved, 
more  than  any  other  people,  in  the  general  history  of 
Europe.  Of  all  their  neighbours,  the  Scandinavians  are 


14  GERMANY 

most  nearly  allied  to  the  Germans.  Both  are  branches  of 
the  Teutonic  race.  But  the  Germans  are  also  connected, 
although  not  so  closely,  with  the  other  surrounding  peo- 
ples. All,  if  we  except  the  Magyars  or  Hungarians,  who 
are  Turanians,  belong  to  the  great  Aryan  family. 

The  Germans  call  themselves  Deutschen.  We  formerly 
used  the  word  Dutch  in  the  same  wide  sense,  but  now 
usually  confine  it  to  the  people  of  Holland.  Deutsch,  or 
Dutch,  is  the  modern  form  of  Theotisc  (Theod^  people}, 
which  first  came  into  use  in  the  Ninth  Century.  The 
word  German  is  probably  of  Celtic  origin.  It  is  believed  to 
have  been  first  applied  to  a  particular  tribe,  and  then  to  the 
race  to  which  the  tribe  belonged. 

The  Germans  or  Dutch  are  divided  into  two  great 
groups,  the  High  and  the  Low.  The  Low-Dutch  live  by 
the  mouths  of  the  rivers  flowing  into  the  North  Sea ;  the 
High-Dutch  in  the  inland  and  mountainous  parts  of  Ger- 
many. They  are  branches  of  the  same  people ;  but  they 
differ  a  good  deal  in  character  and  customs,  and,  above  all, 
in  language.  On  the  Continent  the  only  Low-Dutch 
language  which  remains  the  organ  of  an  important  living 
literature  is  spoken  in  Holland.  The  educated  classes  of 
the  country,  or  group  of  countries,  which  we  now  call 
Germany,  speak  and  write  High-Dutch. 

Our  chief  authority  for  the  condition  of  ancient  Ger- 
many is  the  Germanla  of  Tacitus,  written  in  the  year  98 
A.  D.  At  that  time  the  greater  part  of  the  country  was 
covered  by  forests,  in  which  were  bears,  wolves,  buffaloes, 
elks,  and  other  wild  animals.  The  climate  was  damp  and 
foggy ;  and  in  winter  the  cold  seems  to  have  been  keener, 
and  to  have  lasted  longer  than  at  present.  The  soil  was  in 
many  places  marshy ;  but  much  of  it  was  very  fertile. 


THE  RACE  15 

There  were  many  flocks  and  herds,  generally  of  a  small 
breed. 

The  ancient  Germans  were  divided  into  many  different 
tribes.  These  sometimes  united  among  themselves  for 
purposes  of  attack  or  defence ;  but  they  were  politically 
independent,  each  being  separated  from  the  others  by  toler- 
ably well-marked  boundaries.  On  the  right  bank  of  the 
Rhine,  beginning  with  the  country  now  called  Hessen  and 
passing  northwards,  there  were,  besides  various  others,  the 
Chatti,  the  Tencteri  and  Usipetes,  the  Sicambri,  the  Marsi, 
and  the  Bructeri.  The  Frisians,  Chauci,  and  Saxons  oc- 
cupied the  coasts  from  the  Rhine  to  the  Elbe.  The  terri- 
tory of  the  Cherusci,  one  of  the  bravest  of  German  tribes, 
took  in  the  Harz  Mountains  and  the  country  around  as  far 
as  the  Aller,  the  Weser,  the  Werra,  the  Elbe,  and  the 
Saal.  The  country  from  the  Danube  and  the  Middle 
Rhine  northwards  to  the  Baltic  was  held  by  tribes  con- 
nected closely  enough  to  be  known  by  the  common  name 
of  the  Suevi.  First  among  the  Suevi  were  the  Semnones, 
stretching  from  the  southern  part  of  what  is  now  Branden- 
burg to  the  Riesen  Mountains.  The  Longobardi,  or,  as 
they  were  afterwards  called,  the  Lombards,  were  settled  on 
the  banks  of  the  Lower  Elbe.  The  Marcomanni  were 
neighbours  of  the  Chatti,  between  the  Rhine,  the  Main, 
and  the  Danube ;  and  further  to  the  south-east  were  the 
Quadi.  There  were  other  Suevic  tribes ;  but  it  is  these 
with  whom  history  has  most  to  do.  It  was  long  believed 
that  the  Goths  were  the  original  stock  from  which  all 
Germans  had  sprung ;  but  they  held  to  other  Germans 
merely  the  relation  of  sister  tribes,  and  their  language  is 
more  nearly  akin  to  the  Low  than  to  the  High  German. 
They  occupied  the  banks  of  the  Lower  Vistula.  The 


16  GERMANY 

Vandals,  Burgundians,  and  Rugii,  all  kindred  tribes,  were 
scattered  to  the  west  of  the  Vistula,  along  the  shores  of 
the  Baltic.  The  Gothic  tribes  soon  passed  altogether  out 
of  German  history,  and  had  probably  begun  even  in 
Tacitus's  time  to  separate  frdm  their  kinsmen.  It  must  not 
be  forgotten  that  at  an  early  period  various  German  tribes 
crossed  the  Rhine  in  search  of  new  settlements.  At  the 
time  of  C.  Julius  Caesar  a  large  part  of  the  left  bank  was 
held  by  Germans,  among  whom  the  Ubii  were  distinguished. 
The  Batavians,  who  are  said  to  have  sprung  from  the 
Chatti,  held  the  island  formed  by  the  two  branches  of  the 
Lower  Rhine. 

These  tribes  did  not  call  themselves  by  any  common 
name  ;  but,  according  to  Tacitus,  three  great  groups  were 
recognized — the  Ingaevones,  the  Istaevones,  and  the 
Herminones.  The  first  took  in  all  the  tribes  on  the 
coasts  of  the  North  Sea,  the  second  those  holding  the 
Rhine  country,  and  the  third  those  in  the  centre  of  Ger- 
many. These  groups  were  believed  to  have  sprung  from 
the  three  sons  of  Mannus,  the  first  man,  the  son  of  the 
god  Thuisto.  The  division  had  no  political  importance  ; 
but  it  had  probably  some  real  meaning,  for  it  reappears  in 
another  form  in  later  history. 

The  Germans  were  generally  tall  and  strong.  They 
could  be  fierce  and  cruel ;  but  they  were  brave,  truthful, 
simple  in  their  manners,  and  hospitable.  They  celebrated 
in  songs  the  great  deeds  of  their  forefathers,  and  were 
usually  ready  to  die  rather  than  give  up  freedom.  Although 
an  agricultural  people,  the  occupations  they  most  delighted 
in  were  war  and  hunting.  Their  chief  faults  were  in- 
dolence, drunkenness,  and  excessive  gambling.  They  left 
the  tilling  of  the  fields  and  all  other  peaceful  work  as  much 


THE  RACE  17 

as    possible   to  women    and  to  men  incapable  of  bearing 
arms. 

The  ancient  Germans,  like  other  Aryan  peoples,  were 
divided  into  two  great  classes,  the  nobles,  and  the  common 
freemen.  The  former  were  the  Eorls,  the  latter  the  Ceorls 
of  the  ancient  English.  The  nobles  were  usually  richer 
than  the  freemen,  but  their  position  did  not  altogether  de- 
pend on  their  wealth.  What  their  special  rights  and  priv- 
ileges were,  we  do  not  know  ;  but  they  were  held  in  high 
esteem,  and  took  a  foremost  place  in  public  life.  The 
freemen  formed  the  great  body  of  the  people.  Each  was 
an  independent  member  of  the  community,  and  enjoyed 
equal  rights  with  his  fellows.  Both  freemen  and  nobles 
had  slaves.  This  class  consisted  for  the  most  part  of 
prisoners  of  war  and  their  offspring,  and  of  those  con- 
demned to  slavery  on  account  of  some  crime.  They  were 
usually  well  treated ;  but  they  were  the  absolute  property 
of  their  masters,  and  had  no  redress  against  injustice. 
They  were  not  allowed,  under  any  circumstances,  to  bear 
arms.  Between  the  freemen  and  the  slaves  was  a  peculiar 
class,  consisting  partly  of  freedmen,  and  called  Liti.  The 
Liti  were  in  no  sense  any  one's  property,  and  they  had 
certain  rights  which  they  could  enforce;  but  they  had  no 
share  in  the  political  life  of  the  community.  They  could 
not  possess  land.  They  could  only  hold  it  of  some  master, 
with  whom  they  were  obliged  to  share  the  produce.  They 
were  thus  neither  freemen  nor  slaves,  but  a  class  apart.  If 
a  noble,  a  freeman,  or  one  of  the  Liti  was  killed,  the 
murderer  was  not  put  to  death.  He  had  to  pay  a  fine, 
which  was  in  later  times  called  the  Wergeld.  The  amount 
of  the  Wergeld  varied  amongst  different  tribes ;  but  the 
Wergeld  of  a  noble  was  always  greater  than  that  of  a  free- 


i8  GERMANY 

man,  as  a  freeman's  was  greater  than  that  of  one  of  the 
Liti. 

The  ancient  Germans  did  not  marry  till  their  physical 
and  mental  powers  were  fully  developed.  The  bridegroom 
did  not  exactly  purchase  the  bride ;  but  on  the  day  of  their 
marriage  he  brought  her  a  valuable  gift,  which  she  kept  as 
her  own  property.  The  wife  was  subject  to  the  husband ; 
but  her  position  was  not  a  degraded  one.  She  was  her 
husband's  companion  and  friend,  and  often  went  with  him 
on  distant  warlike  expeditions.  She  was  expected  to  know 
the  use  of  arms,  and  was  usually  brave  and  virtuous.  The 
clan  was  not,  in  the  time  of  Tacitus,  the  foundation  of 
society;  but  family  relations  were  of  great  importance. 
The  father  had  supreme  authority  over  his  children.  He 
had  even  the  power,  in  extreme  cases,  of  putting  them 
to  death.  Uncles,  especially  on  the  mother's  side,  were 
looked  up  to  with  deep  respect.  When  a  freeman  died, 
his  children  were  protected  by  their  relatives,  until  they 
were  able  to  defend  themselves.  A  freeman's  quarrels 
were  always  taken  up  by  his  relatives  j  and  if  he  was 
killed,  it  was  their  duty  to  see  that  the  Wergeld^  which  was 
divided  amongst  the  family,  was  paid. 

There  were  no  cities  in  ancient  Germany.  In  some 
parts  of  the  country  every  freeman  lived  apart  with  his 
family  on  his  own  land  ;  but  the  great  majority  lived  in 
villages.  These  villages  were  made  up  of  a  number  of 
huts,  each  hut  standing  apart  from  the  rest,  surrounded  by 
a  piece  of  ground.  The  land  around  a  village  originally 
belonged  to  the  community,  and  much  of  it  remained  com- 
mon property  ;  but  from  an  early  period  grants  of  land  had 
been  made  to  individuals,  and  the  number  of  those  who 
held  land  as  their  private  property  always  tended  to  increase. 


THE  RACE  19 

An  undefined  number  of  villages  formed  what  was  called  a 
Hundred.  Whether  the  Gau  was  a  name  for  the  entire 
land  of  a  tribe,  or  was  merely  a  division  taking  in  several 
Hundreds,  is  uncertain.  Perhaps  the  name  did  not  arise 
till  a  later  period.  At  all  events,  the  Hundred  was  the 
really  important  division,  for  traces  of  it  are  to  be  found 
among  all  German  peoples. 

Every  village  and  Hundred  had  its  own  Chief,  elected 
by  the  freemen.  Higher  than  the  chiefs  of  the  Hundreds 
and  villages  was  the  chief  of  the  tribe,  appointed  in  the 
same  way.  Some  tribes  had  Kings ;  but  even  Kings  were 
elected,  although  always  from  some  particular  noble  family 
believed  to  have  sprung  from  the  gods.  The  chiefs  of  the 
Hundreds  formed  what  Tacitus  calls  the  princes  of  a  tribe, 
and  acted  as  a  Council  to  the  King  or  other  supreme  chief. 
By  far  the  most  important  right  of  a  chief  was  the  power 
to  form  a  Comitatus  or  Gefolge — that  is,  to  gather  round 
him  a  body  of  men  devoted  to  his  service.  The  princes 
vied  with  each  other  in  having  large  numbers  of  followers. 
The  men  swore  to  be  always  faithful  to  their  lord  ;  and  to 
be  untrue  to  this  oath  was  thought  the  worst  possible  crime. 
In  return  for  their  services,  the  chief  provided  his  men 
with  war-horses,  armour,  and  food ;  and  if  the  tribe  was 
not  at  war,  he  often  gave  them  fresh  opportunities  of  dis- 
tinguishing themselves  by  taking  part  in  the  wars  of  other 
tribes. 

Important  as  was  the  position  of  the  chiefs  in  ancient 
Germany,  their  power  was  comparatively  limited.  Above 
all  chiefs  were  the  Meetings  of  the  people.  Even  the  vil- 
lage had  its  Meeting ;  but  the  really  important  Meetings 
were  those  of  the  Hundred  and  of  the  tribe.  These  Meet- 
ings were  not,  like  modern  Parliaments,  representative. 


20  GERMANY 

All  freemen  had  a  right  to  attend  them.  The  Meetings  of 
the  village  and  of  the  Hundred  did  not  concern  themselves 
with  the  affairs  of  the  tribe.  These  came  before  the  Meet- 
ing of  the  whole  people.  It  was  in  this  general  Meeting 
that  the  chiefs  were  elected — not  only  the  King  or  other 
chief  of  the  tribe,  but  the  chiefs  of  the  various  Hundreds. 
Here  also  the  young  freeman  received  from  his  father  or 
some  prince  the  arms  which  were  the  symbol  that  he  had 
attained  to  a  position  of  independence  in  the  tribe.  All 
difficult  cases  of  justice  were  decided  by  the  Meeting  of 
the  tribe ;  it  also  declared  war  and  concluded  peace,  and 
sanctioned  the  occasional  distant  expeditions  of  the  chiefs 
with  their  followers.  When  questions  of  unusual  difficulty 
were  to  come  before  the  Meeting,  they  were  discussed  be- 
forehand by  the  King  or  other  chief  and  the  princes  of  the 
tribe ;  but  the  ultimate  decision  lay  with  the  people  them- 
selves. The  common  freeman  rarely  took  a  leading  part 
in  the  deliberations.  The  chiefs  laid  their  proposals 
before  the  people  in  plain  terms,  stating  the  arguments 
on  each  side.  If  the  freemen  did  not  agree  with  their 
chiefs,  they  expressed  their  opinion  by  cries  of  dissent ; 
they  signified  their  approval  of  a  proposal  by  clashing  their 
armour. 

The  army  was  not  something  different  from  the  people ; 
it  was  the  people  themselves.  Every  freeman  bore  arms, 
and  might  at  any  moment  be  called  into  active  service. 
Spears  were  the  weapons  most  commonly  used.  Each 
warrior  had  also  a  shield  long  enough  to  cover  almost  the 
whole  body.  The  cavalry  had  no  other  armour ;  but  those 
who  fought  on  foot  had  missile  weapons,  which  they  could 
hurl  to  a  great  distance.  They  sometimes  used  battle-axes 
and  clubs  j  swords  were  little  known.  The  cavalry  never 


THE  RACE  21 

used  saddles.  The  different  companies  were  not  made  up  of 
men  chosen  at  random ;  the  freemen  of  each  Hundred  kept 
together,  and  the  minor  divisions  were  composed  of  kins- 
men and  friends.  Each  prince  commanded  his  own  Hun- 
dred. The  supreme  command  was  undertaken  by  the  king 
or  chief  of  the  tribe,  or  by  a  Herzog  elected  by  the  freemen. 
If  several  tribes  united  to  carry  on  a  war,  the  Herzog,  or 
commander-in-chief,  was  elected  by  the  princes.  The  line 
of  battle  was  arranged  in  the  form  of  a  wedge,  the  bravest 
and  most  experienced  being  put  in  front.  Cavalry  and 
infantry  were  so  placed  that  they  helped  to  protect  each 
other.  When  about  to  make  an  attack,  all  joined  in  a  sort 
of  chant,  putting  their  shields  to  their  mouths  to  make  the 
sound  more  terrible.  To  throw  away  their  shields  on  the 
field  of  battle  was  in  the  highest  degree  disgraceful.  Those 
guilty  of  this  crime  often  killed  themselves,  being  unable  to 
bear  the  contempt  of  their  kinsmen. 

The  Germans,  like  their  Scandinavian  kinsmen,  inherited 
the  common  Aryan  religion,  and  gave  it  forms  adapted  to 
their  own  modes  of  thought  and  feeling.  Their  chief  god 
was  Wodan.  Donar,  or  Thor,  the  god  of  thunder,  was  also 
very  powerful.  The  gods  were  not  worshipped  in  tem- 
ples, but  in  sacred  groves.  Sacrifices  were  offered  to  them, 
sometimes  even  human  sacrifices ;  and  their  will  was  found 
out  by  means  of  lots,  the  flight  of  birds,  and  the  neighing 
of  sacred  horses.  The  Germans  believed  that  the  gods 
took  a  direct  interest  in  human  affairs,  and  that  in  a  future 
life  they  rewarded  brave  men  and  punished  cowards. 

We  hear  very  little,  after  the  Third  Century,  of  the 
many  tribes  formerly  scattered  over  Germany.  They  still 
existed,  but  they  were  joined  together  in  groups,  or  confed- 
erations. How  these  were  formed,  we  do  not  know.  The 


22  GERMANY 

tie  which  united  the  members  of  a  confederation  was  very 
loose.  Still,  the  members  of  each  confederation  had  a  cer- 
tain sense  of  kinship,  and  this  prepared  the  way  for  a  closer 
political  connection.  The  Alemanni,  who  took  in  a  num- 
ber of  Suevic  tribes,  were  one  of  the  most  powerful  of  the 
confederations.  In  the  Third  Century  they  held  the  coun- 
try between  the  Danube  and  the  Main,  and  from  thence 
made  many  incursions  into  Roman  territory.  They  grad- 
ually advanced  southwards  and  westwards  as  far  as  the 
Upper  Rhine,  the  Aar,  and  the  Vosges  Mountains.  To  the 
north  of  the  Alemanni,  from  the  Main  to  the  mouths  of 
the  Rhine,  were  the  Franks.  The  land  to  the  east  of  the 
Franks  was  held  by  the  Saxons  and  Frisians.  The  latter 
held  the  whole  line  of  coast  from  the  Rhine  to  the  Elbe ; 
the  former,  the  basins  of  the  Lower  Elbe,  the  Weser,  and 
the  Ems.  The  centre  of  what  is  now  Germany  was  in  the 
hands  of  the  Thuringians.  They  held  the  wooded  moun- 
tains which  are  still  called  by  their  name,  and  some  part  of 
the  country  to  the  north  and  south.  These  various  con- 
federations may  probably  be  identified  with  the  groups  into 
which  the  Germans,  in  the  time  of  Tacitus,  divided  them- 
selves. If  so,  the  Saxons  and  Frisians  would  represent  the 
ancient  Ingaevones ;  the  Franks  the  Istaevones,  and  the 
Alemanni  and  Thuringians  the  Herminones.  Another 
confederation  was  gradually  formed  by  the  Goths  who  re- 
mained in  Germany,  the  Marcomanni,  and  others.  These 
were  the  Bojoarii  or  Bavarians,  whose  country  took  in 
greater  part  of  the  basin  of  the  Inn,  and  who  became  sub- 
ject in  turn  to  Odoacer  and  to  Theodoric  the  Great. 

Of  the^e  groups  of  tribes,  the  Franks  were  by  far  the 
most  important.  The  history  of  the  Franks  is  for  several 
centuries  the  history  of  Germany.  They  conquered  the 


THE  RACE  23 

Gauls  and  their  own  kinsmen,  and  laid  the  foundation  of 
the  future  kingdoms  of  Germany  and  France.  From  the 
Third  Century  the  Franks  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Middle 
Rhine  often  broke  into  Gaul,  and  attacked  the  Romans. 
They  several  times  conquered  Cologne,  Mainz,  and  Trier, 
and  harried  the  neighbouring  lands.  In  the  Fourth  Cen- 
tury they  were  driven  back  by  Constantine  and  Julian,  and 
in  the  Fifth  by  the  great  general  Aetius ;  but  in  the  latter 
half  of  the  Fifth  Century  they  were  masters  of  the  whole 
country  between  the  Middle  Rhine  and  the  Meuse.  They 
held  also  part  of  the  banks  of  the  Moselle,  and  had  lands  as 
far  south  as  the  northern  boundaries  of  the  Alemanni  and 
Burgundians.  At  this  time  their  chief  town  was  Cologne  ; 
and  they  were  called  (probably  from  Ripa,  a  bank)  Riparii 
or  Ripuarii. 

The  Franks  who  held  the  banks  of  the  Lower  Rhine 
were  called  by  the  Romans  Salians.  The  Ripuarians  were 
more  numerous  than  the  Salians  ;  but  it  was  the  Salians 
who  founded  the  great  Frankish  kingdom.  They  sprang 
for  the  most  part  from  those  Sicambri  whom  Tiberius  set- 
tled near  the  mouths  of  the  Rhine,  and  were  probably 
called  Salians  from  a  tribe  which  wandered  westwards  from 
the  Yssel  or  Isala,  and  united  to  form  one  people  with  the 
Sicambri.  The  Salians  were  nominally  subject  to  the 
Romans,  and  served  in  the  Roman  army  ;  but  they  kept 
their  native  institutions,  and  always  tried,  when  they  had  a 
chance,  to  become  independent.  At  the  time  of  Julian 
they  held  the  country  from  the  Lower  Rhine  to  the  west 
of  the  Meuse.  Julian  advanced  against  them,  and  defeated 
them ;  but  he  allowed  them  to  keep  the  land  they  had 
seized.  About  the  beginning  of  the  Fifth  Century  they 
still  served  in  the  Roman  army,  but  no  longer  recognized 


24  GERMANY 

Roman  supremacy.     They  probably  then  held  the  whole 
country  between  the  Lower  Rhine  and  the  Scheldt. 

The  Salians  were  governed  by  Kings.  Probably  their 
first  King — at  all  events,  the  first  of  whom  we  know  any- 
thing— was  Chlodio.  He  reigned  about  the  middle  of  the 
Fifth  Century.  He  was  defeated  by  the  Romans  under 
Aetius  ;  but  he  succeeded  in  pushing  his  boundaries  as  far 
west  as  the  Somme.  He  became  a  faithful  ally  of  the 
Romans,  who  often  afterwards — especially  in  the  great 
battle  fought  in  451  against  Attila — received  important  aid 
from  the  Salians.  The  famous  Salic  Code  was  probably 
drawn  up  about  the  time  of  Chlodio.  The  state  of  society 
which  it  represents  is  in  many  respects  the  same  as  that 
described  by  Tacitus.  The  people,  like  all  their  kinsmen 
who  had  not  left  Germany,  are  still  heathens.  The  tribe 
is  divided  into  Hundreds,  and  these  again  into  villages;  and 
the  occupation  of  the  people,  when  they  are  not  engaged  in 
war,  continues  mainly  agricultural.  But  the  position  of 
the  King  has  changed.  He  no  longer  receives  his  author- 
ity from  the  people ;  he  inherits  it,  and  exercises  it  as  a 
right.  He  appoints  the  chiefs,  who  are  called  Grafs  or 
Counts,  and  decides  cases  of  justice  which  the  Meeting  of 
the  Hundred — the  largest  that  seems  now  to  be  held — can- 
not settle.  There  is  no  trace  of  the  old  noble  class ;  what 
raises  men  above  their  fellows  is  connection  with  the  King. 
Those  whom  he  appoints  to  an  office,  and  the  members  of 
his  Gefolge  or  Comitatus,  hold  a  very  high  position.  The 
Wergeld  of  a  Graf  and  of  a  follower  of  the  King  is  three 
times  as  large  as  that  of  a  common  freeman.  The  King 
has  thus  already  become  the  central  element  in  the  consti- 
tution. He  exercises  supreme  authority,  and  is  the  fountain 
of  honour.  This  great  increase  of  the  royal  power  was 


THE  RACE  25 

perhaps  partly  due  to  the  influence  of  Roman  ideas,  for  the 
Salians  in  the  Roman  army  would  naturally  learn  habits  of 
strict  obedience. 

The  Prankish  kingdoms  were  divided  into  Gaus  or  Dis- 
tricts, each  of  which  was  governed  by  a  Count.  A  num- 
ber of  Gaus  made  a  Duchy,  over  which  was  a  Herzog  or 
Duke.  Each  of  the  great  groups  or  confederations  of 
tribes  in  Germany  formed  a  separate  Duchy.  The  Dukes 
and  Counts  in  Gaul  were  appointed  solely  by  the  King,  and 
were  looked  on  as  his  officers.  The  Bavarians  elected  their 
own  Dukes ;  and  they  always  chose  them  from  one  noble 
family,  the  Agilolfings.  The  Alemanni  and  Thuringians 
had  also  some  share  in  the  appointment  of  their  Dukes. 
The  freemen  of  each  German  Duchy  met  their  Duke  once 
in  the  year,  and  consulted  with  him  on  affairs  of  im- 
portance. Thus  the  Germans  to  the  east  of  the  Rhine 
kept  more  of  the  old  freedom  than  their  Frankish  con- 
querors. 

The  Merovingian  Kings  soon  adopted  the  Roman  cus- 
tom of  granting  lands  on  condition  of  military  service. 
Such  grants  were  called  at  first  benefices,  but  afterwards 
fiefs.  They  were  made  from  the  royal  lands,  and  were 
usually  given  to  the  King's  men  or  vassals — that  is,  to  the 
Dukes,  Counts,  and  members  of  the  Gefolge.  Thus  the 
service  required  by  a  Merovingian  King  from  the  holder  of 
a  benefice  was  not,  like  that  required  for  lands  granted  by 
the  Roman  Government,  service  to  the  State ;  it  was  the 
service  of  a  vassal  to  his  lord.  The  relation  between  the 
two  was  wholly  personal  in  its  character.  Those  who  did 
not  already  hold  this  personal  relation  to  the  King,  on  re- 
ceiving a  benefice,  became  his  men,  and  swore  to  be  faith- 
ful to  him  and  to  give  him  service  in  war.  From  this  com- 


26  GERMANY 

bination  of  Roman  and  Teutonic  ideas  sprang  the  system 
of  feudal  tenures.  When  benefices  became  hereditary,  the 
holders  usually  granted  pieces  of  land  to  others,  who  en- 
tered into  the  same  relation  to  them  that  they  held  to  the 
King.  And  in  times  of  confusion,  freemen  very  often  gave 
up  their  lands  to  some  powerful  lord,  and  received  them 
back  as  fiefs,  thus  binding  themselves  to  serve  him  in  war 
while  he  undertook  to  protect  them  against  their  enemies. 
In  the  end,  the  Dukes  and  Counts  came  to  hold  their 
Duchies  and  Counties  in  fief,  and  thus  looked  on  all  fief- 
holders  within  their  districts  as  their  vassals.  But  this  was 
not  for  some  time  yet. 

The  Merovingian  Kings,  having  become  rich  and  great, 
lived  in  a  style  of  which  the  early  German  Kings  and  chiefs 
had  never  dreamed.  The  duties  of  their  household  were 
divided  among  a  large  number  of  officers,  among  whom 
were  the  Seneschal,  the  Marshal,  and  the  Chancellor. 
Over  all  officers  of  the  court  was  the  Major  Domus,  or 
Mayor  of  the  Palace.  An  officer  of  less  importance,  at  this 
time,  was  the  Palsgrave,  or  Count  of  the  Palace,  whose 
duties  had  to  do  with  the  royal  tribunal.  These,  and  all 
other  great  officers,  were  taken  chiefly  from  the  members  of 
the  Gefolge.  They  formed  a  Council  which  aided  the  King 
in  administering  justice  and  in  carrying  on  the  affairs  of  the 
State. 

The  holders  of  benefices  tried  from  the  beginning  to 
make  their  lands  hereditary  ;  and  many  of  them  soon  suc- 
ceeded in  doing  so.  Thus  a  great  new  aristocracy  arose 
which  took  the  place  among  the  Franks  of  the  old  noble 
class.  This  aristocracy  soon  lessened  the  kingly  power. 
Its  leading  members  often  met,  and  not  only  shared  the 
government  with  the  King,  but  sometimes  forced  him  to 


THE  RACE  27 

confirm  them  in  rights  which  they  had  seized.  Such  gather- 
ings took  the  place,  to  some  extent,  of  the  old  national 
meetings.  The  various  Kings  had  given  away  so  many 
lands  as  benefices  that  they  were  soon  too  poor  to  defend 
themselves.  They  were  also  weakened  by  carrying  on 
many  cruel  wars  with  each  other.  Thus  it  came  about 
that  by  the  middle  of  the  Seventh  Century  the  Merovin- 
gian Kings,  who  had  for  a  time  been  so  great,  had  lost  nearly 
all  their  power.  The  Dukes,  Counts,  and  other  rich  men, 
acted  as  if  they  were  independent  princes.  The  great 
German  Duchies,  although  still  nominally  subject  to  the 
Franks,  were  practically  free. 

During  this  period  many  German  tribes  became  Chris- 
tian. So  early  as  the  Sixth  and  the  beginning  of  the  Seventh 
Century,  Irish  and  Frankish  missionaries  had  tried  to  con- 
vert the  Germans.  In  the  latter  half  of  the  Seventh  Cen- 
tury the  task  was  taken  up  by  countrymen  of  our  own ; 
and  they  were  the  first  to  labour  with  the  sanction  of  the 
Pope.  Wilfrith,  who  was  accidentally  driven,  in  677,  on 
the  shores  of  Friesland,  preached  there  with  great  success. 
His  work  was  carried  on  by  Willibrord,  who  lived  among 
the  Frisians  about  fifty  years.  Greater  than  either  of  these 
was  Winfrith,  afterwards  called  Saint  Boniface  and  the 
Apostle  of  the  Germans.  He  helped  Willibrord  for  some 
time,  but  spent  the  greater  part  of  his  life  in  Southern  and 
Central  Germany.  In  723,  he  was  made  "  Episcopus  Re- 
gionariui "  of  Germany — that  is,  Bishop  without  any  special 
diocese.  After  this  he  brought  tribe  after  tribe  within  the 
Church,  and  founded  various  bishopricks  and  monasteries. 
In  732,  he  received  the  archiepiscopal  pallium,  and  in  742, 
presided  over  the  first  German  Synod.  In  745,  he  was  ap- 
pointed, as  Metropolitan  of  Germany,  to  the  See  of  Mainz, 


28  GERMANY 

which  from  this  time  occupied  in  the  German  Church  the 
position  held  by  the  See  of  Canterbury  in  the  Church  of 
England.  Ten  years  afterwards  he  was  killed  in  Friesland 
while  on  his  way  to  confirm  some  converts.  At  the  time 
of  Winfrith's  death,  and  chiefly  owing  to  his  efforts,  all  Ger- 
many, with  the  exception  of  Saxony,  was  nominally  Chris- 
tian. The  old  pagan  ideas  still  influenced  to  some  extent  the 
minds  of  the  people ;  but  the  good  seed  had  been  sown,  and 
soon  began  to  spring  up  and  to  bear  fruit. 


PRUSSIA 

FINDLAT  MUIRHEAD 

PRUSSIA,  by  far  the  largest  and  most  important  state 
in  the  German  Empire,  is  a  kingdom  embracing 
nearly  the  whole  of  northern  Germany.  It  is 
bounded  north  by  the  German  Ocean,  Jutland,  and  the 
Baltic;  east  by  Russia  (and  Russian  Poland);  south  by 
Austria,  Saxony,  the  Thuringian  states,  Bavaria,  Hesse- 
Darmstadt  and  Alsace-Lorraine;  and  west  by  Luxem- 
bourg, Belguim  and  the  Netherlands.  Prussia  owns,  be- 
sides, Hohenzollern  and  about  thirteen  other  smaller  ex- 
claves,  or  detached  territories  lying  within  the  bounds  of 
other  German  states. 

The  greater  part  of  Prussia,  more  than  two-thirds  of  its 
total  area,  belongs  to  the  north  European  plain,  while  less 
than  a  third,  chiefly  in  the  south-west,  can  be  described  as 
hilly  or  mountainous.  The  division  line  between  the  two 
districts  is  roughly  indicated  by  an  irregular  series  of  heights 
beginning  with  the  Teutoburgerwald,  to  the  east  of  the 
upper  Ems  and  the  Weser  Hills,  on  both  sides  of  the  upper 
Weser,  and  thence  running  towards  the  south-east  in  the 
Harz  Mountains  with  the  Brocken  (3,740  feet)  and  in  the 
northern  outliers  of  the  Thuringerwald  (Finsterberg,  3,100 
feet,  and  Inselsberg,  3,000  feet).  Farther  to  the  south-east 
this  line  of  heights  is  continued  by  the  Riesengebirge  sep- 
arating Prussian  Silesia  from  Bohemia  and  forming  the  north- 
ern ranges  of  the  Sudetic  system.  None  of  these  ranges 
lie  above  about  5,000  feet ;  the  Schneekoppe  (5,250  feet)  in 


30  GERMANY 

the  Riesengebirge  is  the  loftiest  summit  on  Prussian  terri- 
tory. The  western  and  south-western  parts  of  the  country, 
comprising  Rhenish  Prussia,  Westphalia  and  Hesse-Nassau, 
thus  cut  off  from  the  sandy  and  healthy  wastes  of  the  north, 
are  quite  distinct  in  their  physical  character  from  the  rest  of 
Prussia.  They  are  divided  by  the  Rhine  into  two  portions. 

On  the  west  side  of  the  river,  between  Aix-la-Chapelle 
and  the  Moselle,  is  the  elevated  plain  known  as  the  Hohe 
Veen  and  the  Eifel.  South  of  the  Moselle,  and  parallel 
with  that  river,  stretches  the  Hunsruck,  with  an  average 
height  of  1,200  to  1,500  feet,  and  farther  south  is  the  Hardt, 
the  name  here  given  to  the  northern  extremity  of  the  Vosges, 
On  the  east  side  of  the  Rhine  the  Sauerland  between  the 
Ruhr  and  the  Sieg,  with  the  Rothaar  or  Rotlagergebrige,  is 
succeeded  farther  south  by  the  Westerwald,  between  the 
Sieg  and  the  Lahn,  and  by  the  Taunus  (Feldberg  2,885 
feet),  between  the  Lahn  and  the  Main.  To  the  south  of 
the  Taunus,  famous  for  its  mineral  springs,  lies  the  fertile 
valley  of  the  Main,  while  to  the  east  the  Vogelsberg,  chiefly, 
however,  in  Hesse,  forms  a  link  with  the  Hohe  Rhon,  which 
may  be  regarded  as  an  outlier  of  the  Thuringerswald. 

The  great  northern  plain  which  occupies  the  rest  of  the 
kingdom,  is  varied  by  two  terrace  like  elevations.  The 
surface  is  diversified  with  numerous  lakes,  especially  in  the 
east,  on  what  are  known  as  the  Pomeranian  and  the  East 
Prussian  Lake  plateaus.  On  the  northern  slope,  terminat- 
ing on  the  shores  of  the  Baltic,  there  are  several  fertile  dis- 
tricts, more  especially  along  those  rivers  which  have  been 
carefully  embanked,  as  the  Niemen  and  the  Vistula.  The 
southern  elevation  of  the  Prussian  plain,  running  be- 
tween the  Polish  mountains  of  Sandomir  in  the  south-east 
and  the  Elbe  between  Magdeburg  and  Burg  in  the  north-west, 


PRUSSIA  31 

attains  a  height  of  about  1,000  feet  near  Breslau  on  the 
Oder,  where  it  is  known  as  the  Trebnitz  Heights.  Its  gen- 
eral character  is  more  fertile  than  the  northern  elevation ; 
while  the  country  between  the  two  is,  for  the  most  part,  ex- 
tremely sterile.  It  includes  the  sandy  waste  in  which 
Berlin,  the  capital,  is  situated.  South  of  this  tract  and  in 
Silesia  and  Prussian  Saxony,  the  country  is  fertile,  including 
some  of  the  most  productive  grain-growing  districts  of 
Prussia.  Hanover  has  much  the  same  character.  Great 
marshes,  or  peat-moors,  cover  the  north  and  north-west 
districts ;  but  the  valleys  that  lie  among  the  Harz  Mountains 
in  the  south  are  often  fertile  and  well  adapted  for  agricul- 
ture. The  coasts  are  low  and  require  to  be  protected  from 
the  overflowing  of  the  sea  by  embankments  and  dykes. 
Sleswig-Holstein,  to  the  north  of  the  Elbe,  is  in  part  sandy 
and  healthy  like  the  plain  of  Hanover,  but  it  has  also  nu- 
merous marshes. 

The  northern  plain  is  watered  by  five  large  rivers — the 
Niemen,  Vistula,  Oder,  Elbe  and  Weser — all  of  which 
rise  beyond  the  borders  of  the  Kingdom — and  the  Pregel, 
Eider  and  Ems,  which  are  exclusively  Prussian.  In  the 
west  the  chief  river  is  the  Rhine,  which  enters  Prussia  at 
Mainz,  and  thence  flows  north  through  a  narrow  valley 
noted  as  one  of  the  most  picturesque  parts  of  Germany. 

The  commerce  of  Prussia  is  materially  facilitated  by  her 
central  European  position,  and  the  network  of  river  and 
canal  navigation  which  makes  her  territories  the  connecting 
medium  between  several  of  the  great  European  States,  and 
which,  with  15,000  miles  of  railway,  40,500  miles  of 
public  roads  (all,  or  nearly  all,  formed  since  the  time  of 
Frederick  the  Great),  and  a  coast  line  of  a  hundred  miles, 
gives  her  a  free  outlet  to  the  rest  of  the  world.  The  chief 


32  GERMANY 

ports  are  Memel,  Pillau,  Konigsberg,  Danzig,  Colberg, 
Swinemiinde,  Stettin,  Wolgast,  Stralsund,  Kiel,  Flensborg, 
Altona,  Harburg,  Geestemiinde,  Leer  and  Emden.  The 
principal  commercial  towns  are  Berlin,  Konigsberg,  Breslau, 
Barmen,  Elberfeld,  Danzig,  Posen,  Stettin,  Cologne,  Magde- 
burg, Aix-la-Chapelle  and  Frankfort-on-the-Main.  Annual 
fairs  are  still  held  at  Breslau,  Magdeburg  and  Frankfort-on- 
the-Oder. 

Education  is  compulsory  in  Prussia  between  the  ages  of 
six  and  fourteen,  and  its  management  and  direction  are 
under  the  control  of  the  state.  In  no  country  are  better  or 
ampler  means  supplied  for  the  diffusion  of  knowledge 
among  all  classes  of  the  community.  Prussia  has  ten  uni- 
versities, viz.:  Konigsberg,  Berlin,  Griefswald,  Breslau, 
Halle,  Gottingen,  Munster,  Bonn,  Kiel  and  Marburg.  In 
addition  to  the  libraries  of  the  several  universities,  there  is 
the  Royal  Library  at  Berlin  with  800,000  volumes  and 
about  15,000  manuscripts. 

Prussia  was  an  absolute  monarchy  till  the  crisis  of  1848, 
when  the  decided  movement  in  favour  of  liberal  views  com- 
pelled the  King  to  convoke  a  national  assembly,  and  sub- 
mit to  the  establishment  of  a  constitutional  form  of  gov- 
ernment, which  has  been  repeatedly  modified. 

The  monarchy  is  hereditary  in  the  male  line.  The  sov- 
ereign and  royal  family  must  profess  the  evangelical  con- 
fession of  faith.  The  King,  who  is  not  responsible  for  the 
measures  of  his  government  and  whose  decrees  require 
the  counter-signatures  of  his  ministers,  exercises  the  execu- 
tive power,  nominates  and  dismisses  the  ministry,  summons 
and  dissolves  the  chambers,  orders  the  promulgation  of  the 
laws,  is  commander-in-chief  of  the  forces,  has  the  right  of 
proclaiming  peace  and  war,  granting  reprieves,  etc.  He 


PRUSSIA  33 

bears  the  titles  of  King  of  Prussia,  Markgraf  of  Branden- 
burg, Sovereign  Duke  of  Silesia,  Prince  of  Orange,  Grand- 
Duke  of  Pomerania  and  the  Lower  Rhine,  besides  a  host 
of  lesser  titles.  The  title  "  German  Emperor,"  by  which 
he  is  now  best  known,  is  not,  of  course,  a  Prussian  dignity. 
The  eldest  son  of  the  king  bears  the  title  of  Crown-Prince. 
The  ordinary  royal  residences  are  the  palaces  at  Berlin, 
Potsdam  and  Charlottenburg. 

About  seven-eighths  of  the  population  of  Prussia  are 
Germans.  Of  the  Slavonic  tribes  the  most  numerous  are 
the  Poles,  numbering  two  and  one-half  millions.  In 
Brandenburg  and  Silesia  there  are  about  85,000  Wends ;  in 
East  Prussia,  upwards  of  150,000  Lithuanians;  Western 
Prussia  has  rather  more  than  10,000  Walloons,  using  the 
French  language  ;  intermixed  in  its  generally  German  popu- 
lation Silesia  has  55,000  Czechs  or  Bohemians ;  and  Sles- 
wick-Holstein,  140,000  Danes — making  in  all  about  three 
millions  who  do  not  use  the  German  language,  or  who  em- 
ploy it  only  as  secondary  to  their  native  tongues. 

Three  distinct  hereditary  classes  are  recognized  in  Prussia, 
— viz.:  nobles,  burghers  and  peasants.  To  the  first  belong 
nearly  200,000  persons,  including  the  higher  officials  of  the 
state,  although  that  number  does  not  comprise  the  various 
mediatized  houses,  of  which  sixteen  are  Prussian,  and 
others  belonging  to  different  states,  but  connected  with 
Prussia  by  still  existing  or  former  territorial  possessions. 
The  burgher  class  includes,  in  its  higher  branches,  all  public 
office  bearers,  professional  men,  artists  and  merchants ; 
while  the  peasantry — to  which  all  persons  engaged  in  agri- 
cultural pursuits — are  divided  into  classes,  depending  on  the 
number  of  horses  employed  on  the  land,  etc. 

William  I.  (1861-1888)  who  became  German  Emperoi 


34  GERMANY 

in  187 1,  and  had  been  regent  of  the  Kingdom  since  1858,  ow- 
ing to  the  insanity  of  his  brother,  the  late  King  William 
was  no  more  a  lover  of  constitutional,  or  at  least  of  popular, 
liberty,  than  any  of  his  predecessors  ;  and  in  his  opposition 
to  the  progress  of  the  popular  movement,  in  so  far  as  it 
aimed  at  interference  with  the  regal  power,  he  was  power- 
fully aided  by  his  great  adviser,  Bismarck,  who  became 
Prime-Minister  in  1862  and  Imperial  Chancellor  in  1871. 
The  successful  wars  with  Austria  (1866)  and  France  (1870- 
1871),  which  so  enhanced  the  prestige  of  Prussia,  resulted 
in  united  Germany  of  to-day.  Since  the  King  of  Prussia 
became  German  Emperor,  the  history  of  Prussia  has  been 
practically  merged  in  the  history  of  Germany. 


THE  KAISER'S  CAPITAL 

G.  W.  STEEPENS 


""•^VERLIN!    The  beastliest  capital  in  Europe!"    That 

I  —  >T   was  the  encouraging  testimonial  of  a  friend  who 

M    9  spent  a  fortnight  there  five-and-twenty  years  ago. 

But  when   I  came  to  Berlin  I  stared  and  rubbed  my  eyes  in 

astonishment.     These  broad   streets,  streaming   with  life, 

these    stately   palaces,   these    rich  shops,   gorgeous  hotels, 

luxurious  houses,  endless  wooded  parks,  lavish  pleasures  for 

the  allurement  of  every  sense  —  this  the  beastliest  capital  in 

Europe  ?     Then  try  me  with  the  finest  ! 

The  other  cities  of  Germany  —  I  do  not  speak  of  Austria 
—  are  always  possible  to  live  in,  and  sometimes  even  agree- 
able ;  but  they  are  not  brilliant.  They  all  have  their  solid 
qualities;  and  such  necessities  of  life  as  food,  beer,  tobacco, 
and  theatrical  entertainments  can  be  bought  in  them  at  con- 
sistently ridiculous  prices.  Munich  lays  itself  out  more  for 
art,  Hanover  is  healthier,  Frankfurt  is  the  heart  of  a  more 
romantic  country,  Hamburg  is  gemmed  with  lagoons, 
Cologne  has  a  fairer  building  and  a  fairer  river,  Niirnberg 
offers  the  piquancy  of  trolley-cars  gliding  between  Four- 
teenth-Century gables  and  frescoes.  Berlin  is  a  rather 
tasteless,  rather  unhealthy  city,  standing  in  the  middle  of  a 
rather  featureless  plain,  on  a  decidedly  dull  and  insignificant 
river,  and  presenting  no  architectual  or  historical  features  of 
more  than  ordinary  interest.  And  yet  Berlin  is  emphatic- 
ally and  unmistakably  one  of  the  great  cities  of  the  world. 


36  GERMANY 

Berlin  has  elements  of  both  progress  and  order,  frugality 
and  splendour.  The  progress,  it  is  true,  is  very  orderly, 
and  the  splendour  is  somewhat  frugal — which  is  to  say  that 
both  are  German.  Progress,  indeed,  is  confined  to  the  ma- 
terial side :  you  would  not  come  to  the  Kaiser's  capital  for 
the  latest  feature  in  social  evolution.  But  in  many  of  the 
little  comforts  of  life  Berlin  is  long  strides  ahead  of  London. 
Some  French  writer  or  other  has  found  it  more  like  an 
American  than  a  European  city  ;  superficially  he  was  right. 
The  excellence  of  the  communications,  the  ingenious  little 
electrical  trifles  that  every  hour  save  five  seconds'  unneces- 
sary exertion,  the  wealth  of  telephones,  the  development  of 
the  penny-in-the-slot  automaton,  the  tendency  to  economize 
in  every  kind  of  business  by  simplifying,  by  reducing  to  one 
price — it  all  suggests  Broadway,  just  as  much  as  the  dispo- 
sition of  foot-passengers  to  push  the  stranger  off  the  pave- 
ment without  apology,  and  the  apparent  determination  of 
tram-conductors  and  cab-drivers  to  knock  him  down  and 
drive  over  him.  For  the  first  half  hour  Berlin  is  not  at  all 
unsuggestive  of  New  York. 

But  beneath  the  surface  Berlin  is  not  like  New  York  in 
the  very  least.  A  new  time-saver  or  labour-saver  will  be 
welcomed  readily  enough  when  the  police  has  passed  it — 
but  you  had  better  not  try  it  before.  Install  a  tramway 
down  every  other  street,  certainly — but  you  had  better  not 
forget  the  exact  specifications  as  approved  by  the  police. 
Electric  cars  and  elevated  railways  are  very  excellent  things 
— only  no  patentees  or  shareholders  are  allowed  to  disfigure 
the  Kaiser's  streets  by  running  up  overhead  wires  or  over- 
head rails  along  them.  The  tramway  company  may  want 
this  or  that ;  but  if  the  police,  or  the  town  council,  or  a 
higher  authority  yet,  should  prefer  that  or  this — that  or  this 


THE  KAISER'S  CAPITAL  37 

it  has  got  to  be.  Telephones,  if  you  like,  but  you  will  not 
find  the  State  in  Germany  giving  its  rights  and  duties  away 
together  to  a  company.  A  penny-farthing  fare  for  any  five 
stations  on  the  elevated  railway,  by  all  means — only  not 
the  simple  and  logical  conclusion  of  one  fare  and  one  class 
for  any  distance,  for  then  the  officer  and  the  private  would 
have  to  travel  in  the  same  carriage.  And  if  you  are  driven 
over  in  the  street,  a  policeman  will  always  come  and  make 
a  note  of  it  in  his  note-book,  and  probably  the  driver  will 
be  punished.  You  might  prefer  that  the  policeman  should 
prevent  your  death  instead  of  avenging  it,  but  that  is  not 
the  method  of  Berlin.  The  policeman  is  not  there  to  pre- 
vent misconduct,  he  is  there  to  write  down  particulars  of  it  in 
a  book,  and  see  that  it  is  made  hot  for  somebody  next  morn- 
ing. And  as  for  throwing  people  into  the  gutter,  well,  if 
you  tend  to  imagine  yourself  in  New  York  instead  of  in 
Berlin,  try  it  with  an  officer.  If  a  civilian  stops  in  mid- 
pavement — as  the  German  has  a  way  of  doing,  being  ap- 
parently unable  to  walk  and  think  at  the  same  time — the 
people  behind  do  not  go  round  him,  nor  ask  him  to  get  on ; 
they  just  push  him  on.  But  if  you  push  an  officer,  and  do 
not  apologize,  it  is  not  merely  his  right  but  his  duty  to 
draw  his  sword  and  wound  or  even  kill  you.  You  have 
insulted  the  king's  coat  in  public,  and  the  man  who  does 
not  wash  out  the  insult  in  the  only  possible  way  may  as 
well  send  in  his  papers  at  once,  before  he  is  asked  to 
resign. 

The  streets  of  Berlin  are  an  epitome  of  the  history  of 
Prussia.  Go  and  stand  at  the  eastern  end  of  Unter  den 
Linden  and  you  will  begin  to  realize  it.  All  round  you  is 
a  coronet  of  public  buildings,  not  surpassed  for  stateliness 
anywhere  outside  Paris  and  Vienna.  But  notice  that  as 


38  GERMANY 

they  are  younger,  so  they  become  more  pretentious.  The 
old  buildings  are  solid  and  sometimes  large,  but  they  are 
modest;  they  are  not  very  high;  they  are — all  but  the 
Kaiser's  Castle — made  of  simple  stone.  If  they  are  beauti- 
ful, they  are  beautiful  simply  in  virtue  of  the  lines  traced 
by  the  architect.  They  are  fine,  but  they  are  not  more 
ambitious  than  those  you  see  in  almost  any  little  German 
town  which  ever  sheltered  a  little  German  Court — Wiirz- 
burg,  for  instance.  In  their  day  Prussia  was  but  a  German 
State  among  its  equals.  Then  walk  back  along  the  Lin- 
den, and  look  at  the  new  Reichstag !  It  is  all  ablaze  with 
gilt;  the  roof,  and  porches,  and  walls  are  as  thick  with 
florid  statuary — goddesses,  knights,  angels — as  a  treacled  tree 
is  thick  with  moths  at  nightfall.  Look  at  the  Victory 
column  opposite :  it  crawls  with  trophies  and  allegorical 
figures,  and  on  the  top  is  a  gilt  goddess,  so  enormous 
that  you  hurry  past  lest  the  column  should  snap  under  her. 
Look  at  the  monument  to  the  old  Kaiser  :  the  colossal 
bronze  figures  seem  as  if  they  must  smash  the  marble 
pedestal  to  pieces  under  their  prodigious  weight.  Every- 
thing of  the  Imperial  epoch  in  Berlin  is  double  life-size ; 
almost  everything  is  gilt. 

It  would  require  a  very  magnificent  city  indeed  to  carry 
off  these  tons  of  bronze  and  acres  of  gold-foil.  And  for  all 
its  progress  Berlin  has  not  yet  quite  grown  out  of  the 
frugal,  pinching,  half-capital,  half-provincial  habit  of  its 
earlier  life.  Its  electric  accumulator  tramcars  are  the  most 
palatial  imaginable,  but  its  omnibuses,  with  people  swarm- 
ing like  bees  on  to  their  heavy  knifeboards,  are  clumsy 
abortions,  and  seem  purposely  designed  for  the  torture  of 
the  scraggy  horses.  There  is  a  vast  deal  of  German  sim- 
plicity left  amid  the  gorgeousness  at  Berlin.  The  Thier- 


THE  KAISER'S  CAPITAL  39 

garten  is  a  park  unmatched  for  cool  greenery  in  any  city 
of  the  world  ;  you  can  walk  under  trees  in  it  for  miles  and 
miles.  But  no  influence  can  make  a  Corso,  a  Hyde  Park, 
a  Bois  de  Boulogne  of  it :  you  see  fashionable  people  swell- 
ing with  pride  behind  a  horse,  a  harness,  and  a  groom  that 
a  self-respecting  farmer  would  be  ashamed  to  show  at  mar- 
ket. There  is  a  music-hall  in  Berlin  more  sumptuous  than 
any  I  ever  saw  in  any  country — eighteen  turns,  including 
songs,  ballet,  cinematograph,  jugglery,  acrobats,  knockabouts, 
poses  plastiques,  and  circus-riding,  with  Anna  Held,  Marie 
Lloyd,  and  German  and  Italian  Marie  Lloyds  thrown  in. 
Berlin  divides  its  affections  between  such  Croesus  splen- 
dours as  this  and  restaurants  where  you  cannot  pay  more 
than  a  penny-farthing  for  anything.  There  are  half-a- 
dozen  such  already,  to  say  nothing  of  a  penny- in-the-slot 
restaurant — very  popular  because,  as  its  patrons  unaffectedly 
point  out,  you  do  not  have  to  tip  the  waiter. 

The  Kaiser's  capital  is  a  queer  jumble.  But  the  queer- 
est thing  in  it  is  technically  outside  it — the  Mausoleum  at 
Charlottenberg,  wherein  rest  the  bodies  of  Friedrich  Wil- 
helm,  the  liberator  of  Germany  from  Napoleon,  of  the 
beautiful  Queen  Louise,  who  died  of  a  broken  heart  for 
Germany,  and  of  the  first  Kaiser  and  his  consort.  The 
present  Kaiser  charges  you  twopence-halfpenny  to  view  the 
tombs  of  his  ancestors.  But  that  is  not  all.  At  the  por- 
tal stands  a  cheap  angel,  with  a  gilt  sword  of  flame,  as  if 
the  Mausoleum  were  the  Garden  of  Eden,  or  as  if  the 
Kaiser  could  call  on  the  heavenly  hosts  to  act  as  super- 
numerary policemen.  And  on  the  marble  effigies  of  his 
fathers,  of  the  men  who  built  up  this  great  and  wonderful 
empire  of  Germany — the  light  can  only  fall  through  panes 
of  cheap  violet  and  yellow  glass.  It  is  said  to  be  intended 


40  GERMANY 

to  make  the  figures  look  more  like  real  corpses.  The  holi- 
est heroes  of  Prussia  are  haloed  in  the  vulgar  light  of  a 
penny  gaff.  Berlin  can  be  dazzling,  but  it  can  also  be  very 
tawdry.  The  Kaiser's  city  is  something  of  a  parvenu 
among  capitals  after  all. 


FRANKFURT-ON-  THE-MAIN 

S.   G.  GREEN 

IN  Frankfurt  the  visitor  is  continually  reminded  of  the 
state  of  things  that  has  passed  away.  From  the  old 
watchtowers,  which  show  the  jealously  guarded 
limits  of  the  ancient  "  Free  Imperial  City,"  it  is  but  a  little 
way  to  the  handsome  railway  stations  which  now  open 
communication  to  all  parts  of  the  Empire.  As  in  Vienna, 
the  vast  ancient  ramparts  have  been  levelled,  and  the 
"  Ring,"  here  called  "  Anlagen,"  beautifully  planted  and 
adorned  with  sumptuous  private  and  public  buildings,  gives 
an  air  of  nobleness  to  the  city.  The  Cathedral  tower,  St. 
Bartholomew's  is  fine ;  but  beyond  this,  Frankfurt  has  few 
architectural  attractions.  Its  real  interest  is  in  its  history, 
dating  from  the  days  of  Charlemagne,  who  selected  the 
"  Ford  of  the  Franks  "  for  a  great  convocation  of  bishops 
and  nobles.  From  that  time  the  city  grew  in  importance, 
until  it  was  fixed  upon  as  the  place  of  the  imperial  election. 
The  "  Golden  Bull  "  of  the  Emperor  Charles  V.,  bestow- 
ing this  privilege,  promulgated  from  Nuremberg,  dated 
A.  D.,  1356,  is  still  carefully  preserved  in  the  Romer,  or  City 
Hall,  where  also  may  be  seen,  almost  in  its  original  state, 
the  Wahlzimmer,  or  Chamber  of  Election ;  also  the  Kaisersaal, 
or  Imperial  Hall,  in  which  the  Emperor's  election  was  cele- 
brated by  a  solemn  banquet.  Here  are  portraits  of  more 
than  fifty  emperors  in  succession,  from  Conrad  I.  in  the 
Tenth  Century  to  Francis  II.  in  the  Eighteenth,  with  the 
mottoes  chosen  by  them  at  their  inauguration — a  most  curi- 


42  GERMANY 

ous  and  interesting  story  !  One  of  my  companions  tried 
to  read  the  spirit  of  each  motto  in  the  imperial  countenance 
which  surmounted  it — I  cannot  say  with  any  remarkable 
success.  The  series  of  portraits  terminates  with  Francis 
II.,  whose  forced  renunciation  of  the  imperial  Crown  of 
Germany  for  that  of  Austria  closed,  in  1806,  the  history  of 
a  thousand  years.  Many  vicissitudes  followed.  Frankfurt 
was  eventually  recognized  at  the  Congress  of  Vienna  as  a 
free  city,  and  was  the  seat  of  the  German  Diet,  until  after 
the  war  of  1866  it  was  absorbed  in  Prussia.  The  traditions 
of  historic  greatness,  however,  cling  to  it ;  and  one  is  re- 
minded at  every  step  that  Frankfurt  stands  alone  among  the 
cities  of  Germany. 

The  Autobiography  of  Goethe,  referring,  of  course,  to  a 
period  when  the  imperial  power  was  still  at  its  height,  shows 
how  the  associations  of  the  city  influenced  the  youthful 
poet. 

"  Important,"  he  says,  "  and  fruitful  for  us  was  the 
Council  House,  named  from  the  Romans.  In  its  lower 
vault-like  halls  we  liked  but  too  well  to  lose  ourselves.  We 
obtained  an  entrance,  too,  into  the  large  and  very  simple 
session-room  of  the  Council.  The  walls  as  well  as  the 
arched  ceiling  were  white,  though  wainscoted  to  a  certain 
height ;  and  the  whole  was  without  a  trace  of  painting  or 
any  kind  of  carved  work  ;  only  high  upon  the  middle  wall 
might  be  read  this  brief  inscription  : 

One  man's  word  is  no  man's  word, 
Justice  needs  that  both  be  heard. 

"  But  whatever  related  to  the  election  and  coronation  of 
the  emperors  possessed  a  greater  charm.  We  managed  to 
gain  the  favour  of  the  keepers,  so  as  to  be  allowed  to  mount 


FRANKFURT-ON-THE-MAIN          43 

the  new,  gay,  imperial  staircase,  which  was  painted  in 
fresco,  and  on  other  occasions  closed  with  a  grating.  The 
election  chamber,  with  its  purple  hangings  and  admirably 
fringed  gold  borders,  filled  us  with  awe.  The  representa- 
tions of  animals,  on  which  little  children  or  genii,  clothed 
in  the  imperial  ornaments  and  laden  with  the  insignia  of 
the  Empire,  made  a  curious  figure,  were  observed  by  us 
with  great  attention  ;  and  we  even  hoped  that  we  might  live 
to  see,  some  time  or  other,  a  coronation  with  our  own  eyes. 
They  had  great  difficulty  to  get  us  out  of  the  great  Kaiser- 
saal^  when  we  had  been  once  fortunate  enough  to  steal  in  ; 
and  we  reckoned  him  our  truest  friend  who,  while  we 
looked  at  the  half-lengths  of  all  the  emperors  painted  round 
at  a  certain  height,  would  tell  us  something  of  their  deeds. 

"  We  listened  to  many  a  legend  of  Charlemagne.  But 
that  which  was  historically  interesting  for  us  began  with 
Rudolph  of  Hapsburg,  who  by  his  courage  put  an  end  to 
such  violent  commotions.  Charles  IV.  also  attracted  our 
notice.  We  had  already  heard  of  the  Golden  Bull  and  of 
the  statues  for  the  administration  of  criminal  justice.  We 
knew,  too,  that  he  had  not  made  the  Frankfurters  suffer  for 
their  adhesion  to  his  noble  rival,  Emperor  Gunther,  of 
Swartzburg.  We  heard  Maximilian  praised,  both  as  a 
friend  to  mankind  and  to  the  townsmen,  his  subjects,  and 
were  also  told  that  it  had  been  prophesied  of  him  he  would 
be  the  last  emperor  of  a  German  house,  which  unhappily 
came  to  pass,  as  after  his  death  the  choice  wavered  only  be- 
tween the  King  of  Spain  (afterwards  Charles  V.),  and  the 
King  of  France,  Francis  I.  With  some  anxiety  it  was 
added  that  a  similar  prophecy,  or  rather,  intimation,  was 
once  more  in  circulation  ;  for  it  was  obvious  that  there  was 
room  left  for  the  portrait  of  only  one  more  emperor,  a  cir- 


44  GERMANY 

cumstance  which,  though  seemingly  accidental,  filled  the 
patriotic  with  concern." 

Goethe's  house,  like  Shakspere's  at  Stratford-upon-Avon, 
is  carefully  preserved ;  and  throws  much  pleasant  side-light 
on  the  autobiography.  The  inscription  on  the  front  reads 
thus :  yobann  Wolfgang  Goethe  was  born  in  this  house  28th 
August  1749.  I*  snould  be  visited  even  by  those  who  as- 
sign to  this  great  poet  a  place  distinctly  below  the  highest, 
and  who  mourn  over  the  inadequacy  of  the  solution  which 
the  most  consummate  of  literary  artists  has  offered  to  the 
great  problems  of  human  existence. 

From  the  house  of  Goethe,  in  the  Hirschgraben,  it  is  but 
a  little  way  to  the  Dom  Platz,  where  a  yet  greater  man, 
and  one  who  has  left  beyond  all  others  the  impress  of  his 
personality  on  the  German  mind,  had  his  residence  for  a 
time.  For  here,  on  one  visit,  at  least,  was  the  home  of 
Luther.  The  house  is  now  marked  by  his  portrait,  and  the 
inscription,  In  quietness  and  in  confidence  shall  be  your 
strength.  It  will  be  remembered  that  the  selfsame  words 
are  taken  as  the  motto  of  Keble's  Christian  Tear. 

But  the  words  were  hardly  prophetic.  The  "  Troubles 
at  Frankfurt,"  connected  with  the  rise  of  the  evangelical 
community  in  the  city,  have  become  historical.  In  1554 
John  Knox  accepted  an  invitation  to  Frankfurt  from  a  band 
of  English  Protestant  exiles  who  had  settled  in  this  city. 
"That  settlement  and  that  ministry  were  pregnant  with 
consequences  to  the  religious  life  of  the  English  nation,  of 
which  we  have  not  seen  the  end.  It  was  at  Frankfurt, 
under  the  ministry  of  John  Knox,  that  Puritanism  took  its 
rise." 

Few  who  visit  Frankfurt  omit  to  pay  a  visit  to  the  Jew's 
quarter.  This,  as  in  Prague,  Vienna,  and  other  German 


FRANKFURT-ON-THE-MAIN          45 

cities,  was  long  maintained  apart  from  the  rest  of  the  city, 
almost  as  a  separate  colony,  characterized  by  gloom,  close- 
ness, and  squalor,  not  altogether  from  poverty — as  here 
the  Rothschild  family  was  founded,  with  other  houses  of 
wealth  and  note, — but  from  the  long  proscription  of  the 
hated  and  outcast  race.  Up  to  the  end  of  the  last  century 
no  Jew  was  permitted  to  cross  the  Romerburg;  and  the 
gates  of  the  Jew's  quarter  were  closed  every  evening  at  an 
early  hour,  after  which  its  inhabitants  were  forbidden,  under 
heavy  penalties,  to  appear  in  any  other  part  of  the  city. 
Happily  this  exclusiveness  is  now  at  an  end,  and  the  Jew 
mingles  on  equal  terms  with  his  fellow-citizens. 


COLOGNE 

R.  A.  HOZIER 

THE  city  of  the  Eternal  Cathedral,  as  a  poet  has 
called  it,  is  accumulated  so  to  speak  on  the  river 
bank,  and  reflects  itself  in  the  broad  mirror  of  the 
Rhine,  which  curves  at  its  feet  in  a  noble  basin,  incessantly 
furrowed  with  the  tracks  of  busy  keels. 

The  imperial  and  shameless  Agrippina,  the  mother  and 
victim  of  Nero,  was  born  within  the  walls.  The  city  then 
assumed,  as  .a  politic  compliment,  the  name  of  the  Roman 
commander's  daughter;  it  called  itself  Colonia  Agrippina,  a 
name  which  is  better  preserved  in  the  French  Cologne  than 
in  the  German  Koln. 

Koln  preserved  for  several  generations  the  traditions  of 
its  infancy  ;  they  were  effaced  neither  by  the  fall  of  the 
empire,  nor  the  great  flood  of  barbarian  invasion,  nor  the 
genial  influences  of  Christianity,  nor  the  complicated  system 
of  feudalism.  For  many  centuries  it  called  its  nobles,  pa- 
tricians ;  its  magistrates,  senators ;  its  burgomasters,  consuls ; 
its  bursters,  lictors.  It  had  even  its  capital.  Its  inhabit- 
ants preserved  the  Roman  costume  as  well  as  the  Roman 
manners,  and  on  its  municipal  banners  were  long  inscribed, 
after  the  Roman  usage,  S.  P.  Q.  C.,  Senatus  Populusque  Co- 
loniensis. 

Early  in  the  Fourth  Century  Koln  was  captured  and 
plundered  by  the  Franks.  Julian  the  Apostate  (how  history 
delights  in  nick-names  !  ),  recovered  it,  but  they  again  made 


COLOGNE  47 

themselves  its  masters,  and  took  care  to  keep  it.  Here  the 
illustrious  Clovis,  the  son  and  successor  of  Childeric  was 
crowned  king.  When  at  his  death  the  empire  he  had 
laboriously  built  up  was  partitioned  among  his  children, 
Koln  remained  one  of  the  principal  cities  of  Austrasia,  a 
kingdom  of  which  Metz  was  the  capital.  When,  in  their 
turn,  the  sons  of  Louis  le  Debonnaire  divided  the  mighty 
realm  of  Charlemagne,  it  was  comprised  within  Lotharingia, 
of  the  territory  of  Lothair,  whence  comes  the  well-known 
word  Lorraine.  Passing  rapidly  down  the  stream  of  Time, 
we  find  it  ravaged  by  the  Mormons  in  88 1  and  882.  But, 
escaping,  without  any  serious  injury,  from  all  the  turmoil 
of  these  early  centuries,  it  was  reannexed  to  the  German 
Empire  by  Otho  the  Great,  was  endowed  with  extraordi- 
nary privileges,  and  placed  under  the  special  protection  of 
his  brother  Bruno,  duke  of  Lorraine,  archbishop  and  elector 
of  Koln. 

Thenceforth  it  grew  rapidly  in  importance,  and  increased 
wonderfully  in  population.  Its  safety  became  the  peculiar 
object  of  the  German  emperors,  and  when  it  was  threatened 
by  Frederick  Barbarossa,  its  ruler,  the  Archbishop  Philip  of 
Heimsberg,  who  had  already  enlarged  it  considerably  by 
connecting  it  with  its  suburbs,  surrounded  it  with  solid  walls, 
and  moats  filled  by  the  water  of  the  Rhine.  Its  present 
fortifications  are  of  a  later  date ;  belonging  to  the  Four- 
teenth, Fifteenth,  Eighteenth,  and  even  Nineteenth  Cen- 
turies. 

In  1 21 2  Koln  was  declared  a  free  imperial  city.  At  this 
time  it  was  one  of  the  largest,  most  populous,  and  most 
opulent  cities  in  Northern  Europe  and  the  Hanseatic 
League.  She  could  put  into  the  field,  and  maintain,  an 
army  of  30,000  soldiers. 


48  GERMANY 

In  1259  if  obtained  permission  to  levy  a  most  extraordi- 
nary impost.  Every  ship  entering  its  waters  could  only 
disembark  its  cargoes  through  the  agency  of  boats  or  barges 
belonging  to  its  merchants.  These  same  crafty,  wealth- 
amassing  burghers  enjoyed  very  great  privileges  in  England. 
Its  relations  were  scarcely  less  advantageous  with  France, 
Spain,  Portugal,  the  North  of  Germany,  and  especially  with 
Italy,  which  exported  thither,  not  only  its  architecture  and 
arts,  but  some  of  its  characteristic  customs,  such  as  its  wild  gay 
Carnival,  and  its  puppet  theatres.  Hence  it  acquired  the 
distinctive  name  of  the  "  Rome  of  the  North  "  and  "  Holy 
Koln  " ;  and  hence  it  was  induced  to  form  in  its  own 
bosom  a  school  of  painting,  the  first  with  which  Germany 
was  enriched. 

Koln  had  now  attained  the  climax  of  her  greatness,  and 
thenceforth  her  wealth  and  power  began  to  wane.  The 
discovery  of  America  opened  up  a  new  channel  to  the  com- 
merce of  the  East ;  but,  perhaps,  the  chief  cause  of  its  decay 
was  its  incessant  civil  commotions.  The  Jews  of  Koln, 
who  had  done  so  much  for  its  opulence,  were  cruelly  mas- 
sacred ;  the  industrious  and  ingenious  Protestants  were  ban- 
ished ;  and  a  riot  breaking  out  among  the  weavers,  they 
were  hung  by  the  score,  and  1,700  looms  were  burned  in 
the  public  place.  The  survivors  carried  elsewhere,  to  more 
tolerant  and  equitable  countries,  the  precious  secrets  of  their 
industry  ;  and  so  the  harbour  was  no  longer  filled  with  ships, 
nor  did  the  hammers  ring  in  the  deserted  workshops.  Work- 
men, without  employment,  wandered  begging  through  the 
streets,  and  finding  the  trade  of  mendicancy  productive, 
never  again  abandoned  it.  It  became  a  scourge ;  one-half 
the  city  lived  on  the  alms  of  the  other  half,  and  thus  they 
preyed  upon  the  beautiful  city  which  Petrarch  had  admired, 


COLOGNE  49 

until  it  became  a  wreck  of  what  it  was.  And  finally,  to 
complete  its  ruin,  the  Dutch,  in  the  Sixteenth  Century, 
closed  up  the  navigation  of  the  Rhine,  which  was  not 
again  thrown  open  until  1837. 

In  1794,  when  Koln  was  captured  by  the  French,  it  still 
held  the  rank  of  a  free  imperial  city,  but  its  population  did 
not  exceed  40,000  souls.  At  that  time  a  third  of  its  popu- 
lation still  lived  by  mendicancy.  The  French  government, 
it  must  be  owned,  took  prompt  measures  to  repress  this 
abuse;  it  secularized  the  convents,  suppressed  a  great  num- 
ber of  churches,  and  opened  workshops  and  factories  for  the 
employment  of  the  poor. 

France  held  Koln  until  1814.  For  twenty  years  it  was 
the  chief  town  of  one  of  the  arrondissements  of  the  de- 
partment of  the  Roer,  of  which  Aix-la-Chapelle  was  the 
capital.  The  Russians  occupied  it  militarily  for  a  few 
months,  after  which  the  Treaty  of  Paris  handed  it  over  to 
Prussia.  Let  us  admit  that  if  the  rule  of  Prussia  be  some- 
what vigorous,  it  is  also  healthy  and  sagacious ;  and  Koln, 
since  1815,  has  thriven  greatly.  The  establishment  of  a 
steam-boat  service  on  the  Rhine,  the  reopening  of  the  navi- 
gation of  that  river,  and  the  construction  of  numerous  im- 
portant lines  of  railway  which  all  find  a  terminus  at  Koln, 
have  given  a  new  impetus  to  its  industry  and  commerce. 
Koln  is  famous  as  the  birthplace  of  Agrippina  and  St. 
Bruno. 

The  electorate  of  Koln,  formerly  one  of  the  states  of  the 
German  empire,  and  one  of  the  three  ecclesiastical  elector- 
ates, was  included  in  the  circle  of  the  Lower  Rhine,  and 
comprised  numerous  provinces  and  territories  now  belonging 
to  Prussia.  It  was  suppressed  in  1794. 

We  shall  borrow  a  general  description  of  the  city  from 


50  GERMANY 

the  animated  pages  of  M.  Durand.  He  will  not  allow  that 
it  is  a  beautiful  city,  at  least  in  its  present  condition.  It  has 
all  the  inconveniences  of  the  Middle  Ages,  but  none  of 
their  picturesqueness.  It  is  muddy,  irregular,  dull,  badly 
laid  out,  and  insufficiently  paved.  The  best  view  of  it  is 
obtained  from  the  river.  There,  indeed,  its  aspect  is  fair 
and  pleasant ;  but  both  the  fairness  and  pleasantness  vanish 
when  you  plunge  into  its  labyrinthine  streets.  The  truth 
is,  everybody  visits  it  for  the  sake  of  its  cathedral,  that  im- 
mortal, that  priceless,  relic  of  the  loftiest  art. 

The  cathedral  is  built  on  a  cruciform  plan,  and  rises 
about  sixty  feet  above  the  Rhine,  on  an  eminence,  which, 
since  the  days  of  German  supremacy,  has  formed  the  north- 
eastern angle  of  the  fortifications.  Its  total  length  is  511 
feet,  its  breadth  at  the  entrance  231  feet;  the  former  cor- 
responding with  the  height  of  the  tower ;  the  latter,  with 
the  height  of  the  western  gable. 

The  choir  consists  of  five  aisles,  is  161  feet  in  height, 
and,  internally,  from  its  size,  height,  and  disposition  of  pil- 
lars, arches,  chapels,  and  beautifully  coloured  windows,  re- 
sembles a  poet's  dream.  Externally,  its  two-fold  range  of 
massive  flying  buttresses  and  intermediate  piers,  bristling 
with  airy  pinnacles,  strikes  the  spectator  with  awe  and  as- 
tonishment. The  windows  are  filled  with  fine  old  stained 
glass  of  the  Fourteenth  Century ;  the  pictures  on  the  walls 
are  modern.  Round  the  choir,  against  the  columns,  are 
planted  fourteen  colossal  statues  ;  the  Saviour,  the  Virgin, 
and  the  Apostles,  coloured  and  gilt ;  they  belong,  like  the 
richly  carved  stalls  and  seats,  to  the  early  part  of  the  Four- 
teenth Century. 

The  fine  painted  windows  in  the  south  aisle  of  the  nave 
were  the  gift  of  King  Louis  of  Bavaria  j  those  in  the  north 


COLOGNE  51 

aisle  were  executed  in  1508.  The  reredos  of  the  altar  of 
St.  Agilolphus  is  a  quaint  old  combination  of  wood  carving 
and  Flemish  painting. 

The  apsidal  east  end  is  surrounded  by  some  chapels.  In 
the  chapel  immediately  behind  the  altar  is  placed  the  cele- 
brated shrine  of  the  Three  Kings  of  Cologne,  or  the  Magi 
who  were  led  by  the  star,  loaded  with  Oriental  gifts,  to 
worship  the  infant  Saviour.  Their  supposed  bones  were 
carried  off  by  San  Eustoryis,  at  Milan,  by  Frederick  Bar- 
barossa  in  1162,  and  were  presented  by  him  to  his  com- 
panion and  counsellor,  Rinaldo,  archbishop  of  Koln.  The 
skulls  of  the  three  kings,  inscribed  with  their  names, 
Caspar,  Melchior  and  Balthazar,  written  in  rubies,  are  ex- 
hibited to  view  through  an  opening  in  the  shrine,  crowned 
with  diadems  (a  ghastly  contrast),  which  were  of  gold,  and 
studded  with  real  jewels,  but  are  now  only  silver  gilt. 

The  choir  is  the  consummate  ideal  of  the  Christian 
tabernacle.  Columns  slender  as  lances  spring  aloft  to  the 
very  roof,  where  their  capitals  expand  in  flowers.  All  the 
rest  is  a  splendid  mass  of  glasswork,  whose  lancets  are 
tinted  over  their  whole  surface  with  a  rich  colouring  of 
azure,  gold  and  purple. 

There  are  numerous  archiepiscopal  tombs  in  the  lateral 
naves. 

We  follow  from  the  cathedral  into  the  ancient  Roman- 
esque church  of  Saint  Martin ;  a  church  to  be  visited  upon 
market-day,  at  the  hour  when  the  peasants  of  the  neigh- 
bourhood abandon  their  fruits  and  vegetables  to  hear  mass. 
In  their  temporary  seclusion  from  worldly  affairs,  these  rude 
and  angular  figures,  with  their  fixed  serious  gaze,  and 
almost  awkward  air,  seem  to  have  stepped  out  of  some  old 
woodwork,  or  ancient  German  engraving. 


$2  GERMANY 

Verily,  Koln,  metropolis,  as  it  is  of  the  banks  of  the 
Rhine,  is  still  the  city  of  the  apostles  and  the  princes  of  the 
Church,  and  even  in  these  days  of  German  Rationalism, 
the  capital  of  Catholic  Germany. 

The  town-hall,  which  is  situated  between  the  Gurzenich 
(custom-houses),  and  the  cathedral  is  one  of  those  enchant- 
ing harlequin-like  edifices  built  up  of  portions  belonging  to 
all  ages,  and  of  fragments  of  all  styles,  which  we  meet  with 
in  the  ancient  communes,  the  said  communes  being  them- 
selves constructed,  laws,  manners  and  customs  in  the  same 
manner.  The  mode  of  formation  of  these  edifices  and  of 
their  customs  is  a  curious  study.  It  is  an  agglomeration 
rather  than  a  construction,  a  successive  development,  a 
fantastic  aggrandizement,  or  encroachment  upon  things 
previously  existing.  Nothing  has  been  laid  out  on  a  regular 
plan,  or  digested  beforehand ;  the  whole  has  been  produced 
au  fur  et  a  mesure,  according  to  the  necessity  of  the  times. 

The  general  effect  of  this  ancient  structure  is,  however, 
very  imposing.  It  was  begun  in  1250,  and  terminated  in 
1571,  and  is  therefore  a  record  of  three  centuries  of  archi- 
tectural progress.  Its  portico  is  in  the  Renaissance  style, 
and  the  second  story  is  embellished  with  triumphal  arches 
made  to  serve  as  arcades.  The  large  and  splendid  hall  in 
the  interior,  where  the  Hanseatic  League  formerly  held  its 
sittings,  is  adorned  with  nine  large  statues  of  knights. 

Beside  the  town-hall  stands  the  "  Chapel  of  the  Council," 
which  formerly  'enshrined  the  Dombild,  now  preserved  in 
the  St.  Agnes  chapel  of  the  cathedral.  It  contains  a  fine 
Roman  mosaic,  discovered  when  digging  the  foundations  of 
the  new  hospital ;  and,  also,  a  small  collection  of  ancient 
pictures.  In  its  fine  tower,  ornamented  with  many  statues 
and  constructed  in  1407,  the  municipal  council  was  wont 


COLOGNE  53 

to  assemble  ;  at  present  it  meets  in  the  adjacent  building, 
erected  in  1850. 

Near  the  Jesuit's  church,  and  not  far  from  the  quays  of 
the  Rhine,  stands  the  church  of  St.  Cunibert,  commenced, 
and  consecrated  in  1248,  by  Archbishop  Conrad.  It  stands 
on  the  site  of  an  older  church,  built  in  633  by  the  prelate 
whose  name  it  bears.  In  its  architectural  character  it  is 
Romanesque,  two  portions  only  belong  to  the  ogival  style. 

Of  course  no  visitor  to  Koln  fails  to  make  a  pilgrimage 
to  that  legendary  edifice,  the  church  of  St.  Ursula.  From 
an  artistic  point  of  view  it  presents  very  little  that  is  interest- 
ing or  remarkable,  except  in  the  choir,  the  tomb  of  St. 
Ursula  (dating  from  1668)  and  her  statue  in  alabaster  on  a 
pedestal  of  black  marble,  with  a  dove  at  her  feet. 

The  legend  runs  that  St.  Ursula,  daughter  of  a  British 
king,  set  sail  with  a  train  of  n,ooo  virgins,  to  wed  the 
warriors  of  an  army  that  had  migrated,  under  Maximus,  to 
conquer  Armorica  from  the  Emperor  Gratian.  The 
ladies,  however,  losing  their  way,  were  captured  at  Koln  by 
the  barbarous  Huns,  who  slew  every  one  of  them  because 
they  refused  to  break  their  vows  of  chastity.  The  story  is 
told  in  a  series  of  most  indifferent  pictures,  to  the  right  of 
the  visitor  as  he  enters  the  church.  The  relics  of  the  vir- 
gins cover  the  whole  interior  of  the  building ;  they  are  in- 
terred under  the  pavement,  let  into  the  walls,  and  displayed 
in  glass  cases  about  the  choir. 

As  in  St.  Ursula's,  so  in  St.  Gereon's  church,  the  prin- 
cipal ornaments  are  bones.  The  nave  dates  from  1262; 
the  other  portions,  including  the  choir  and  crypt,  are  as 
early  as  1066-69.  The  baptistery,  of  the  same  date  as  the 
nave,  contains  a  font  of  porphyry,  said  to  be  a  gift  of 
Charlemagne. 


54  GERMANY 

In  the  late  Gothic  choir  of  the  semi-Romanesque  church 
of  St.  Andrew  are  preserved  the  relics  of  the  great  chemist 
and  necromancer,  Albertus  Magnus.  The  Church  of  the 
Jesuits  (1636)  contains  the  crosier  of  St.  Francis  Xavier, 
and  the  rosary  of  St.  Ignatius  Loyola. 

One  of  the  most  ancient  churches  is  that  of  Santa  Maria 
di  Capitolio.  It  is  reputed  to  have  been  founded  in  700, 
by  Plectruda,  wife  of  Pepin  d'  Heristal,  and  mother  of 
Charles  M artel,  who  erected  a  chanonry  beside  it.  It  is 
very  clear  that  Plectruda's  tomb  belongs  to  an  earlier  date 
than  the  edifice  which  now  enshrines  it ;  and  which,  judg- 
ing from  its  Romanesque  style,  was  erected  about  the  be- 
ginning of  the  Eleventh  Century. 

The  Church  of  St.  Peter  should  be  visited  for  the  sake  of 
the  great  picture  by  Rubens,  forming  its  altar-piece,  of  the 
Crucifixion  of  the  Apostle,  with  his  head  downwards.  It 
was  painted  shortly  before  the  master's  death.  Wilkie  and 
Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  both  criticise  it  adversely ;  but  the 
visitor  who  contemplates  it,  however,  without  any  foregone 
conclusion,  will  be  powerfully  impressed  by  it,  and  will 
pronounce  it  not  unworthy  of  Rubens.  The  artist  was 
baptized  in  this  church ;  and  the  brazen  font  used  on  this 
occasion  is  still  preserved.  Until  he  was  ten  years  old 
(1587)  he  lived  in  the  house,  No.  TO  Sternengasse  where 
Marie  de'  Medicis  died  in  1642. 

The  church  of  the  Minorites,  that  of  St.  Mauritus,  those 
of  St.  Pantaleon  and  St.  Andrew,  are  well  worth  visiting. 
The  same  may  be  said  of  the  double  iron  bridge  (1,352  feet 
long)  across  the  Rhine ;  the  noble  quays  ;  the  House  of  the 
Templars,  No.  8  Rheingasse;  the  new  Rathaus,  and  the 
Wallraff-Richartz  Museum  of  pictures,  found  and  en- 
riched by  the  two  citizens  whose  name  it  bears. 


HELIGOLAND 

G.  W.  STEEPENS 

HELIGOLAND  is  an  absurd  little  triangle  of  red 
rock  sticking  up  out  of  the  North  Sea.     Its  popu- 
lation is  put  down  as  something  over  2,000 ;  and 
an  active  man  can  walk  round  it,  cutting  off  a  corner  here 
and  there,  in  twenty  minutes.     Its  staple  industry  is  letting 
lodgings  to  Germans,  varied  by  fishing  in  the  off  season. 
Its  staple  export,  up  to  the  time  it  became  part  of  the  Ger- 
man empire,  was  postage  stamps. 

Why  the  Kaiser  ever  cast  the  eye  of  desire  upon  it,  and 
exchanged  for  it  the  German  claim  upon  vast  territories  in 
Eastern  Africa,  the  Germans  themselves  do  not  profess  to 
know.  As  a  taxable  entity  Heligoland  is  securely  con- 
temptible. Its  fisheries  have  fallen  off;  nothing  grows  on 
it  but  potatoes  and  a  few  sheep ;  there  is  said  to  be  one 
horse  on  it,  though  he  is  not  exhibited  to  strangers,  and  the 
cows  are  imported  for  the  tourist  season.  Strategically  it 
seems  equally  insignificant.  It  lies  opposite  the  mouths  of 
the  Elbe  and  Weser ;  but  it  has  no  harbour,  hardly  a  road- 
stead, and  nothing  with  even  a  remote  resemblance  to  a 
dock  or  a  wharf.  It  is  the  kind  of  island  which  the  stronger 
Power  can  do  without,  and  which  is  no  help  to  the  weaker. 
To  these  elements  of  uselessness  it  adds  the  disadvantage 
that  it  is  slowly,  but  steadily,  falling  away  into  the  sea. 

Why  did  the  Kaiser  desire  it  ?  Perhaps  the  explanation 
is  to  be  found  in  the  historical  maps  of  Germany,  as  ap- 
pointed to  be  used  in  schools.  There  you  will  see,  each 


56  GERMANY 

marked  in  a  separate  colour,  the  various  territories  added  to 
the  original  Mark  of  Brandenburg  by  succeeding  sovereigns 
of  Prussia.  P'rom  Albert  the  Bear,  down  through  the  Great 
Elector  and  the  Great  Frederic,  the  tale  of  expansion  goes 
on  till  it  comes  down  to  Alsace  and  Lorraine.  And  then 
the  list  of  enlargers  of  the  empire  closes  with  the  still,  small 
inscription  — 

1890  :  WILHELM  II.,  HELIGOLAND. 

And  there,  I  fancy,  you  have  it. 

He  wanted  something  to  play  with,  something  of  his 
very  own  to  add  to  the  empire,  whereupon  he  might  leave 
his  indelible  mark ;  and  played  with  it  in  the  seven  years  of 
its  Germanization  he  assuredly  has.  The  first  word  you 
meet  when  you  step  ashore  in  Heligoland  is  the  familiar 
"  Forbidden."  It  is  forbidden  to  make  a  mess  on  the  beach 
on  pain  of  punishment  by  the  police.  Under  the  notice 
stands  the  largest  German  policeman  my  eyes  ever  saw, 
spiked  helmet  on  head,  and  in  his  belt,  not  only  the  uni- 
versal sword,  but  also  a  huge  revolver.  A  little  farther  on 
you  come  to  a  flat  stone  let  into  the  ground,  with  the  in- 
scription :  "  Wilhelm  II.,  August  10,  1890."  That  marks 
the  spot  where  the  Kaiser  stood  when  he  took  possession  of 
the  island.  Even  poor  little  Heligoland  cannot  escape  the 
German  passion  for  memorials. 

Then  you  begin  to  pass  through  the  streets  of  the  queer 
little  place.  Heligoland  is  a  toy  place  all  over  and  all 
through.  It  looks  like  a  toy  island  from  the  first  moment 
the  grey  blotch  bobs  up  over  the  steamer's  bow ;  but  when 
you  pass  through  the  narrow  streets,  with  the  wooden 
painted  houses,  the  suggestion  of  a  German  toy  is  irresist- 


HELIGOLAND  ,57 

ible.  There  is  no  carriage  traffic,  and  so  the  main  streets 
are  ten  feet  wide  and  the  side  streets  six  feet.  The  many- 
coloured  houses  have  just  the  pointed  roofs  and  the  regular 
square  windows  that  we  all  remember  on  the  lids  of  our 
boxes  of  bricks ;  they  are  mostly  two-storeyed,  yet  so  low 
that  it  looks  as  if  one  good  kick  would  send  all  Heligoland 
down  flat.  The  names  are  a  queer  jumble  of  English  and 
German.  The  Empress  of  India  Hotel  stands  side  by  side 
by  the  Deutscher  Reichs  Adler,  and  Kaiser  Strasse  is  parallel 
with  Victoria  Strasse.  But,  of  course,  the  names  of  the 
streets  have  been  translated  into  German  letters,  though,  to 
be  sure,  O'Brien  Strasse  still  remains  in  its  glory.  And  in 
the  middle  of  the  Kaiser  Strasse  stands  the  new  post-office. 
The  Kaiser's  Government,  of  course,  suppressed  the 
stamps  which  were  one  of  Heligoland's  main  sources  of 
income,  and  assimilated  the  postage  to  the  rest  of  the 
empire.  But  the  old  post-office  was  plainly  not  imposing 
enough  for  a  department  of  the  sacred  Government.  So 
they  have  built  a  new  one  of  glazed  bricks  in  the  style  of 
the  Victoria  Station  subway — the  most  pretentious  edifice 
on  the  island.  And  on  it,  in  letters  of  gold,  stands  the  in- 
scription, "  Built  under  William  II." 

But  the  first-fruits  of  that  beneficent  rule  consist  in  the 
fortifications.  Nothing  grows  in  Heligoland  except  pota- 
toes did  I  say  ?  What  a  magnificent  crop  of  notice-boards, 
long  in  the  straw,  heavy  in  the  ear,  embowers  the  fortifica- 
tions !  With  what  sternness  is  the  Heligolander  forbidden 
to  approach  the  fortifications,  referred  to  section  so-many- 
hundred-and-so-many  of  the  "  Strafgesetzbuch,"  and 
threatened  with  the  penalties  of  the  Act  dealing  with  the 
betrayal  of  military  secrets  !  "  Strafgesetzbuch  "  means, 
literally,  punishment-law-book — that  is  to  say,  criminal 


58  GERMANY 

law.  Criminal  law  is  a  necessity  of  all  civilized  States — 
and  yet  there  is  something  about  the  conception  of  the 
"  punishment-law-book  "  quite  German.  You  picture  the 
German  buying  the  work  in  a  book-shop,  and  reading  it  up 
to  find  what  things  it  is  naughty  to  do  and  how  hard  he  will 
be  smacked  for  each  naughtiness  respectively.  The  Heligo- 
lander  would  seem  to  be  beset  by  few  temptations  ;  but 
with  the  Germans  came  the  new  crime  of  betraying  military 
secrets.  Before,  there  were  no  military  secrets  to  betray. 
Now,  in  the  ample  space  devoted  to  official  notices,  you 
may  read  directions  how  the  Heligolander  is  to  avoid  this 
crime.  He  must  not  sketch  or  photograph  forts  or  guns ; 
he  must  not  take  notes  of  their  bearings ;  he  must  keep  off 
the  grass  near  them,  and  in  general  he  must  not  look  at 
them  too  often  or  too  long.  And  he  must  remind  all 
strangers  politely — no  naughty  rudeness  !  —  that  they  must 
do  likewise. 

You  may  some  of  you  remember  the  First  Recruit.  He 
was  the  first  baby  born  after  the  cession  of  the  island,  and 
when  his  time  comes  he  will  have  to  serve  in  the  army  or 
navy.  You  may  see  the  poor  little  wretch's  pinched  face 
— he  is  twelve  years  old  now — in  almost  every  shop  win- 
dow in  Heligoland.  He  has  been  photographed  in  a  busby 
and  sabre,  with  a  toy  horse  at  his  feet,  from  which  I  infer 
that  the  idea  is  to  make  a  hussar  of  him.  Possibly  Heligo- 
land's only  horse  has  been  imported  to  familiarize  him  be- 
times with  the  fact  that  such  a  quadruped  exists.  Now, 
shortly  after  the  First  Recruit  was  born  the  Kaiser  and 
Kaiserin  visited  the  island  in  state ;  and  of  the  scandalous 
behaviour  of  the  First  Recruit  on  this  occasion  I  speak  on 
the  testimony  of  an  eyewitness.  When  the  Kaiserin 
landed  there  met  her  six  maidens  of  Heligoland  bearing  a 


HELIGOLAND  59 

bouquet  of  flowers.  Behind  them  was  the  First  Recruit  in 
the  arms  of  his  mother ;  the  Kaiserin  approached  him  and 
made  to  pat  his  cheek.  The  First  Recruit  made  one  wild 
clutch  at  the  bouquet  and  tore  the  middle  out  of  it.  Next 
came  the  Kaiser,  and,  undeterred,  made  also  to  pat  his 
cheek.  Then  the  First  Recruit  once  more  raised  an  im- 
pious hand  and  smote  his  sovereign  across  the  face,  and 
then  turned  right  round  and  showed  his  back  and  hid  his 

O 

face  and  refused  to  be  comforted.  From  this  it  may  be  in- 
ferred that  the  First  Recruit  is  of  the  old  Heligoland  party, 
which  objects  to  German  rule — the  new  Heligoland  party 
not  being  yet  in  existence. 

The  Heligolanders  are  a  square-built  race,  akin  in  dress 
and  looks  to  our  East  Coast  fishermen,  with  faces  seared 
brick-red  by  the  salt  wind.  They  say  little,  but  they  do 
not  like  the  change.  They  do  not  like  the  police,  they  do 
not  like  the  regulations.  They  do  not  like  the  guts  of  their 
island  torn  out  to  make  fortifications  which  they  must  not 
walk  over.  They  do  not  like  a  lump  of  their  island  to  fall 
into  the  sea  when  the  heavy  guns  are  fired :  there  is  not 
much  of  the  island,  and  all  there  is  they  want.  They  do 
not  like  the  prospect  of  sending  their  sons  away  for  three 
years  to  serve  a  sovereign  whose  quarrels  are  not  theirs ; 
and  especially  they  do  not  like  the  broad  space  of  cliff 
papered  with  instructions  what  they  are  to  do  and  what  they 
are  not  to  do.  One,  I  noticed,  had  reference  to  an  elec- 
tric launch.  Somebody  appeared  to  have  said  that  it  was 
not  safe,  and  its  German  owner  complained  to  the  magis- 
trate, who  issued  a  notice,  saying  that  if  anybody  did  that 
again,  he  would  be  punished  under  rule  so-many-thousand- 
and-so-many.  Of  course  it  was  wrong  of  the  boatman  to 
libel  the  electric  launch,  but  it  was  probably  sincerely  done, 


60  GERMANY 

and  very  human.     Only  the  iron  heel  is  down  on  Heligo- 
land, and  human  nature  must  be  squeezed  out. 

The  magistrate  issues  his  notice  from  some  town  in 
Schleswig-Holstein.  Heligoland  stands  all  by  itself  in  the 
sea ;  its  people  have  their  own  little  history  and  traditions 
and  ways,  their  own  German-Danish-Dutch-English 
speech.  But  they  are  part  of  the  German  Empire  now, 
and  in  the  German  Empire  there  is  only  room  for  the  one 
pattern.  Poor  little  Heligoland,  melting  away  into  the 
German  Ocean ! 


MECKLENBURG 

MAURICE  TODHUNTER 

A  MOURNFUL  fascination  clings  to  such  provinces 
of  the  earth  as  struggle  to  hold  their  own  local 
features  and  character  against  the  levelling  in- 
fluence of  large  cities  and  governments.  Few  seamen  who 
slumber  in  the  scorching  sunshine  of  July  and  leave  their 
nets  to  dry  at  midday  on  the  banks  of  the  Warnow,  seem 
to  realize  the  fact  that  they  alone  of  all  people  in  the  whole 
west  of  Europe  are  exempt  from  the  benefits  and  the  dul- 
ness  of  constitutional  rule.  Nor  would  they  be  able  to 
estimate  the  exact  amount  of  Slav  or  Teuton  blood  that 
flows  in  the  veins  of  the  fellow-townsmen  of  the  rough 
old  commander  who  stands  sword  in  hand  in  front  of  the 
red  temple  of  Minerva,  although  rumour  has  accused  him 
of  a  certain  hostility  to  letters. 

A  lordly  castle  on  a  lake,  built  in  the  style  of  mansions 
on  the  banks  of  the  Loire,  lodges  the  royal  house  that  still 
makes  laws  for  the  Duchy  of  Mecklenburg.  Like  most 
children  of  the  north,  their  princely  forefathers  upheld 
Luther  in  his  reforming  zeal,  and  kept  up  an  intercourse 
with  the  sovereigns  of  Denmark.  Many  dark  Wendt 
features  look  down  from  the  walls,  amidst  diadems  and 
armour,  with  a  deep-set  but  genial  expression.  The  great 
Dr.  Schliemann,  who  dug  up  the  bracelets  of  Helen,  was 
the  son  of  a  pastor  in  the  neighbourhood,  and  his  bronze 
image  is  reflected  in  the  peaceful  water  that  flows  beneath 
the  houses  of  Schwerin. 


62  GERMANY 

A  striking  contrast  prevails  between  the  refinement  of 
Schwerin  and  the  busy  life  of  Rostock.  No  harbour  in  the 
Baltic  boasts  a  larger  fleet  of  black  trading  vessels,  which 
pass  constantly  seawards  along  pine-clad  banks  and  by  the 
mole  of  Warnemunde.  The  tall  church  towers  form  a 
beacon  for  mariners,  soaring  above  sand-hills  and  green 
intervening  pasture-land. 

Few  Baltic  watering-places  are  more  popular  than  Warne- 
munde, with  its  long  sea  frontage  and  prim  plantations  of 
myrtle.  Various  forms  of  music  of  a  high  order  may  be 
heard  all  day  long.  Whenever  the  wind  is  in  the  north  the 
sea-breezes  improve  the  complexion  of  well-dressed 
womanhood,  but  cannot  quite  blow  off  the  Semitic  taint 
from  some,  however  much  they  may  have  forgotten  the  old 
songs  of  Zion  beside  strange  waters. 

The  peasantry  of  Mecklenburg  suffered  during  the  Thirty 
Years'  War  almost  more  than  any  between  the  Baltic  and 
the  Tyrol.  Only  the  great  Gustavas  saved  them  from  the 
tyranny  of  the  Hapsburgs  when  they  had  been  sold  to 
Wallenstein  and  his  savage  band  of  plunderers.  The  town 
of  Rostock  itself  remained  in  Swedish  hands  between  the 
Peace  of  Westphalia  and  1803.  Thus  Blucher  himself 
was  born  a  Swedish  subject,  and  is  said  to  have  first  longed 
for  a  soldier's  life  as  he  beheld  the  Swedish  hussars  on  the 
seashore  in  boyhood. 

Stein  happened  to  travel  through  the  whole  duchy  in 
1802,  but  records  an  unfavourable  impression  :  "  The  ap- 
pearance of  the  whole  country  displeased  me  as  much  as 
the  cloudy  northern  climate  ;  great  fields,  of  which  a  con- 
siderable part  lies  in  pasture  and  fallow,  extremely  few 
people,  the  whole  labouring  class  under  the  pressure  of  serf- 
dom, the  fields  attached  to  single  farms,  seldom  well-built — 


MECKLENBURG  63 

in  one  word,  uniformity,  a  deadly  stillness,  a  want  of  life 
and  activity  diffused  over  the  whole  which  oppressed  and 
soured  me  much.  The  abode  of  the  Mecklenburg  noble- 
man who  keeps  down  his  peasants  instead  of  improving 
their  condition,  strikes  me  as  the  lair  of  a  wild  beast  who 
desolates  everything  round  him,  and  surrounds  himself  with 
the  silence  of  the  grave.  Assuredly  even  the  advantage  is 
only  apparent ;  high  energy  of  cultivation,  thorough  agri- 
culture, is  only  possible  where  there  is  no  want  of  human 
beings  and  human  power. 

Storks  abound  on  the  borderland  between  Mecklenburg 
and  Pomerania.  Stralsund  is  less  lively  than  Rostock,  but 
possesses  an  interest  of  its  own  with  its  quaint  church  tow- 
ers and  battlements  encompassed  on  all  sides  by  water.  In 
the  middle  of  summer  a  festival  is  still  held  to  celebrate  a 
mighty  deliverance.  Wallenstein,  whose  favourite  motto 
was  "  God  up  in  heaven  and  myself  down  here,"  had  sworn 
a  blasphemous  oath  to  take  Stralsund  by  storm,  though  it 
were  tied  by  chains  to  the  firmament.  But  "  the  old  God 
of  the  Protestants  "  (to  cite  a  Saxon  historian)  remembered 
His  faithful  people  and  brought  His  enemies  to  confusion. 
Twelve  thousand  Catholics  perished  in  the  vain  attempt, 
while  the  brave  Danes  and  Swedes  helped  the  inhabitants 
by  sea. 

Nothing  can  surpass  the  beauty  of  moonlit  nights  on  the 
Baltic  when  the  waters  are  at  rest  and  ships  and  well-wooded 
headlands  are  visible  far  and  wide.  The  white  silvery 
cliffs  of  the  eastern  coast  of  Rugen,  looking  down  on  old 
battleships  at  anchor,  seem  to  have  sprung  straight  from  the 
canvas  of  Turner.  A  king  once  sat  on  that  rocky  brow 
(Charles  XII.  of  Sweden)  during  a  naval  combat  between 
his  subjects  and  the  Danes.  Behind  is  a  dusky  and  mys- 


64  GERMANY 

tical  lake,  where  human  sacrifices  were  once  offered  to 
Hertha,  until  a  handsome  young  knight  came  from  a  far 
country  to  win  the  heart  of  the  priestess,  and  forswore  her 
to  change  her  trade. 

In  spite  of  long  periods  of  Swedish  dominion  and  genial 
old-world  memories  of  mirth  and  song,  Stralsund  and 
Rostock  are  both  thoroughly  German  at  present.  A  visit  to 
the  town  of  Lund  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  water  (where 
Esaias  Tegner,  the  Gothic  singer  of  Frithjof,  fell  madly  in 
love  with  another  man's  wife  before  he  became  a  bishop) 
shows  the  contrast  between  Swedish  and  German  ways, 
particularly  the  ways  of  young  men  in  their  studious  seed- 
time. 

Fritz  Reuter  is  the  best  known  writer  whom  Mecklen- 
burg has  had,  and  sometimes  bears  the  label  of  the  German 
Dickens.  If  the  humour  of  Dickens  is  more  effective  than 
his  pathos,  Reuter  is  usually  praised  for  his  mixture  of  both. 
The  cellar  where  he  sat,  and  sometimes  drank  to  excess,  is 
still  used  as  a  restaurant,  and  boasts  of  paintings  of  scenes 
out  of  his  works  on  its  walls.  A  quaint  story  is  told  of  his 
exclaiming  "  white  or  red  ?  "  instead  of  the  usual  list  of 
cumbrous  titles  and  compliments,  to  a  minor  German  prince, 
who  once  visited  him  in  the  morning  and  found  him  shab- 
bily dressed  and  sitting  in  front  of  his  table.  It  is  not  left 
on  record  which  of  the  two  beverages  the  prince  helped  him 
to  consume. 

To  pass  from  Mecklenburg  to  Hamburg  seems  almost 
like  passing  from  one  century  into  another.  Even  the 
swan  that  swim  in  the  superb  Alster-Bassin  seem  more  pro- 
saic than  those  which  float  around  the  lake  and  castle  of 
Schwerin,  with  ancient  trees  in  the  background.  Perhaps 
imperial  influences  will  soon  make  themselves  felt  and 


MECKLENBURG  65 

change  the  old  qualities  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  duchy. 
But  a  great  modern  historian  was  surely  right  in  his  surmise 
that  human  beings  would  cease  to  be  interesting  and  poet- 
ical if  they  could  be  uprooted  from  their  localities  and  be- 
come "a  machine-made  fabric,  the  counterpart  of  countless 
others,"  under  military  pressure  or  other  levelling  forces. 


HAMBURG 

ARTHUR  SB  AD  WELL  MARTIN 

N'EXT  to  Berlin,  the  greatest  city  of  the  German 
empire  and  the  third  largest  port  of  the  world  is 
Hamburg.     Its  territory  of  159  square  miles  forms 
a  constituent  state  as  well  as  a  city,  the  latter  covering  an 
area  of  thirty  square  miles.     It  is  situated   at  the  estuary 
of  the  Elbe  and  has  a  population  (1900)  of  768,349.    It  is  the 
seat  of  the  upper  Hanseatic  court,  and  of  the  provincial  courts 
of  Bremen,  Hamburg  and   Liibeck.     It  sends  three  mem- 
bers to  represent  it  in  the  Reichstag. 

The  city  has  long  been  the  commercial  emporium  of 
Northern  Europe  and  the  efforts  to  keep  it  abreast  of  the 
times  by  providing  facilities  for  unloading  and  loading  mer- 
chandise have  resulted  in  the  finest  equipment  of  docks  and 
wharfs  to  be  found  anywhere  in  the  world.  The  river  bed 
is  being  constantly  dredged  and  deepened  so  that  now  ves- 
sels drawing  twenty-three  feet  can  reach  the  city.  The 
trade  and  population  have  consequently  increased  with 
great  rapidity  in  recent  years.  The  tonnage  of  its  mercan- 
tile marine  surpasses  that  of  the  whole  of  Holland,  and  its 
commerce  extends  over  the  whole  globe.  In  1876,  when 
it  already  ranked  third  in  the  world's  ports  the  number  of 
vessels  entered  was  4,991 ;  in  1900,  the  total  had  risen  to 
13,100,  with  a  tonnage  of  8,000,000.  The  two  leading 
nations  with  which  Hamburg  trades  are  Great  Britain  and 
the  United  States.  In  1900,  the  imports  from  Great  Brit- 


HAMBURG  67 

ain  amounted  to  $108,052,000;  and  the  exports  to 
$103,530,000.  In  1900,  the  total  imports  from  all  coun- 
tries by  boat  and  rail  were  valued  at  $951,000,000;  and  the 
exports  at  $285,000,000. 

Hamburg  is  also  one  of  the  foremost  cities  in  the  world 
in  the  banking  business,  besides  being  pre-eminent  as  a 
coffee-mart,  and  an  emigration  bureau.  Nearly  half  a  mil- 
lion persons  departed  in  the  years  1890-1895,  three  quarters 
of  them  being  destined  for  the  United  States.  The  prin- 
cipal industries  of  the  city  are  cigar-making,  spirit  and  sugar 
refining,  brewing,  meat-curing,  engineering  and  ship- 
building. 

The  most  famous  street,  and  the  busiest  thoroughfare  of 
the  city  is  the  Jungfernstieg.  The  Alter  and  Neuer  Jung- 
fernstieg  are  fine  quays  on  the  Alster-Bassin.  Commercial 
life  centres  at  the  Exchange  and  in  the  neighbouring  streets, 
the  Neuerwall  and  Alterwall.  Fine  old  residences  of  the 
opulent  merchants  of  the  Sixteenth  and  Seventeenth  Centu- 
ries are  to  be  seen  in  Rodings-Markt  and  the  Katharinen- 
strasse.  Hamburg  is  not  rich  in  public  monuments. 

St.  Catharine's  Church  which  escaped  the  fire  is  one  of 
the  most  interesting  buildings  because  of  its  age.  St. 
Nicholas's,  built  from  designs  by  Sir  Gilbert  Scott,  as  a 
memorial  of  the  fire  of  1842,  has  one  of  the  tallest  spires  in 
Europe  (483  feet  high).  St.  Michael's,  built  in  the  Eight- 
eenth Century,  has  a  spire  432  feet  high. 

Among  the  civic  buildings,  the  Ratbaus  completed  in 
1894  and  the  picture  gallery  are  the  most  important. 

Hamburg  has  a  long  record.  It  was  founded  by  Char- 
lemagne in  804 ;  but  its  importance  as  a  centre  of  commerce 
began  in  the  Thirteenth  Century  when  the  emperor  Fred- 
erick I.  granted  it  the  free  navigation  of  the  Elbe  from  the 


68  GERMANY 

city  to  the  sea,  with  the  right  of  levying  a  toll  on  foreign 
shipping.  These  privileges  were  confirmed  by  his  son, 
Otho  IV.,  who  raised  Hamburg  to  the  rank  of  a  free  city. 
In  1241  Hamburg  joined  with  Lvibeck  in  the  formation  of 
the  Hanseatic  league  and  from  that  time  increased  rapidly  in 
wealth  and  commercial  importance,  augmenting  its  territory 
by  the  purchase  of  the  township  of  Ritzebiittel,  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Elbe  (where  the  harbour  of  Cuxhaven  in  now  situ- 
ated), and  several  villages  and  islands  in  the  vicinity  of  the 
town.  Under  the  protection  of  the  German  emperors, 
Hamburg  soon  became  powerful  enough  to  defend  itself  and 
its  commerce  both  by  sea  and  land,  and  carried  on  war  for 
a  considerable  period  against  the  Dutch  and  the  Danes, 
though  with  varying  success.  It  early  embraced  the  doc- 
trines of  the  reformation,  and  in  consequence  of  the  vigor- 
ous administration  of  its  affairs,  never  had  an  enemy  within 
its  walls  during  the  stormy  period  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War. 
The  frequently  recurring  disputes  with  Denmark  ceased  in 
1768,  when  that  power  renounced  all  claim  to  any  portion 
of  the  Hamburg  territory.  The  prosperity  of  the  city  con- 
tinued to  increase  until  1799,  when  a  great  commercial 
crisis  occurred,  followed  in  1806  by  its  occupation  by  the 
French,  which  with  a  few  interruptions,  lasted  till  1814. 
During  this  period  the  town  was  strongly  fortified,  it  being 
Napoleon's  intention  to  make  Hamburg  the  stronghold  of 
his  power  in  northern  Germany.  The  sufferings  of  the 
citizens  were  very  great,  and  their  losses  were  estimated  at 
$52,500,000.  » Their  miseries  culminated'in  the  siege  which 
the  French  under  Davout  sustained  from  the  Russians  in 
the  winter  of  1813-14,  when  30,000  people  were  driven 
out  of  the  town,  many  of  whom  perished  of  cold  and  hunger. 
In  1815  Hamburg  joined  the  German  confederation,  and 


HAMBURG  69 

enjoyed  a  return  of  its  former  prosperity  until  the  terrible 
fire  of  1842,  by  which,  within  three  days,  one-third  of  the 
city  was  destroyed,  and  great  loss  of  life  and  property  took 
place.  The  fire  was,  however,  not  an  unmixed  evil,  for  ad- 
vantage was  taken  of  the  opportunity  to  reconstruct  that  por- 
tion of  the  town,  which  by  its  broad,  well-lighted,  and  well- 
drained  streets,  and  fine  and  lofty  houses,  offers  a  striking  con- 
trast to  the  remaining  part,  much  of  which  is  devoted  to  whole- 
sale business,  and  intersected  by  canals  communicating  with 
each  other  and  with  the  river,  by  which  goods  are  conveyed 
in  lighters  to  and  from  the  warehouses.  The  old  ramparts 
have  been  converted  into  gardens  and  walks,  and  the  beauty 
of  the  city  is  greatly  increased  by  two  large  sheets  of  water 
formed  by  the  Alster,  and  surrounded  by  good  hotels  and 
private  houses,  many  of  which  in  the  suburb  of  Uhlenhorst, 
about  two  miles  from  Hamburg,  are  very  charming. 


THE  HARZ  MOUNTAINS 

HENR  T  BLACKS  URN 

THE  attractions  of  the  Harz  Mountains  to  the  in- 
habitants of  the  flat  countries,  in  the  burning  days 
of  July  and  August,  are  greater  than  the  sea- 
breezes  of  their  coast.  The  charm  of  mountaineering  and 
walking  on  heather-covered  hillsides  and  wandering  freely 
in  forests  of  pines,  is  greater  and  more  alluring  than  the 
casinos  on  the  sea-shore.  Thus  it  is  that  the  capitalists  of 
the  northern  towns  of  Germany,  especially  Bremen,  are 
popularizing  the  principal  valleys  in  the  Harz,  constructing 
railways  and  hotels  and  turning  little  villages  into  prosperous 
summer  towns.  The  crowded  inhabitants  of  the  old  streets 
of  Bremen  and  Leipzig,  where  children  live  like  caged 
birds  for  nine  months  of  the  year,  fly  with  native  instinct  to 
trees  and  woods,  to  freedom  and  fresh  air,  to  see  in  real  life 
the  little  red  and  white  houses,  the  stifF  pine-trees,  the  flat- 
sided  sheep,  the  spotted  cows,  the  herdsmen  in  brown  and 
green  "  Noah's  ark "  coats  and  the  formal  procession  of 
pigs,  goats  and  sheep  that  they  had  played  with  in  baby- 
hood. The  process  is  now  made  easy  enough  for  all 
classes.  A  through  ticket  can  be  taken  from  Bremen  to 
Harzburg,  and  the  journey  is  accomplished  in  about  six 
hours. 

What  there  is  to  see  in  the  Harz  Mountains  and  how 
the  holiday-makers  beguile  their  summer  days,  the  tourist 
may  see  for  himself  in  less  than  a  week  by  following  the 
route  indicated  in  this  narrative. 


THE  HARZ  MOUNTAINS  71 

Leaving  Hanover,  with  its  dirty  streets  and  sunburnt 
walls,  with  its  old  palaces  covered  with  Prussian  affiches,  we 
take  the  railway  to  Brunswick  and  so  on  southward  to 
Goslar  in  the  Harz  Mountains. 

Goslar — this  strange  old  town  set  on  the  slopes  of  beauti- 
ful hills — who  ever  heard  of  it  before  excepting  as  "  the 
head-quarters  of  a  mining-district — bleak,  dull  and  uninter- 
esting "  ?  Have  we  not  made  a  discovery  here  of  a  new 
world  of  interest  ?  What  is  its  history — to  compass  in  a 
few  words  eight  centuries  of  time  ?  A  city  rich,  flourish- 
ing and  powerful,  with  imperial  rights  and  dignities,  once 
the  residence  of  emperors  and  the  seat  of  the  German  Diet; 
the  source  of  almost  unbounded  wealth  in  its  gold  and  silver 
mines,  guarded  from  its  watch-towers  by  trained  bands  of 
warriors  day  and  night, — a  city  not  only  planned  and  forti- 
fied with  wonderful  knowledge  of  the  science  of  defence, 
but  set  upon  a  line  of  hills  with  such  admirable  design,  that 
it  must  have  been  a  delightful  place  of  residence  in  imperial 
days.  A  pause  of  five  hundred  years,  and  the  old  Roman- 
esque buildings — which  are  still  traceable  here  and  there, 
such  as  the  Dom-capelle^  a  relic  of  the  imperial  Dom  erected 
by  Conrad  II.  in  the  year  916, — are  swept  away,  and  a 
new  element  of  life  makes  its  mark  in  Goslar :  a  period  of 
commercial  prosperity  takes  the  place  of  the  more  romantic 
and  warlike ;  the  arms  and  insignia  of  an  imperial  city  are 
thrust  aside,  the  guilds  and  corporations  erect  town-halls, 
warehouses,  and  massive  high-gabled  beer  breweries.  The 
Gothic  Kaiserwerth  (now  turned  into  an  inn),  standing  in 
the  central  square,  gives  in  itself  a  new  character  to  the 
city,  and  bows  and  arrows  give  place  to  more  peaceful 
weapons.  A  new  city  is  built,  so  to  speak,  within  the  walls 
of  the  old  ;  new  customs  and  new  sciences  are  introduced, 


72  GERMANY 

manufactures  are  encouraged,  and  the  art  of  mining  and 
smelting — the  source  of  wealth,  the  raison  d?  etre,  it  may  be 
said  of  Goslar — is  carried  to  such  perfection,  that  the 
world  and  the  world's  wealth  flock  hither  from  all  parts  of 
Germany.  Schools  of  mining  are  established,  geological 
experiments  of  great  scientific  importance  are  carried  on, 
and  the  little  river  Gose,  which  once  flowed  a  wide  stream 
through  the  town,  has  its  tributaries  diverted  for  mining 
purposes  and  dwindles  almost  out  of  sight.  Three  hundred 
years  more,  and  the  city  is  asleep.  Its  population  has 
dwindled  away  ;  its  mining  operations  are  no  longer  the 
world's  wonder;  its  halls  are  turned  into  granaries;  the 
walls  of  the  old  beer  breweries  totter  and  fall ;  the  wooden 
gables  lean ;  the  carved  wood-work  on  its  doorways  becomes 
defaced ;  there  is  silence  in  its  streets. 

The  Kaiserwerth  in  the  market-place,  is  the  principal 
inn — a  picturesque  old  building  of  the  Fifteenth  Century, 
adorned  exteriorly  with  statues  of  former  emperors — and 
there  are  several  others  in  the  town.  The  streets  are 
roughly  paved  and  some  not  too  clean ;  but  the  old  houses, 
with  their  carved  frontages  and  high-pitched  gables,  fringed 
with  ornament  and  decorated  with  grotesque  figures,  the 
creepers  growing  over  the  closed  lattices,  the  solid  brass 
door-knockers  in  the  likeness  of  mermaids,  satyrs,  dolphins, 
dragons  and  griffins,  the  deep,  rich  colour  of  stained  wood, 
and  the  peeps  of  the  hills  at  the  ends  of  the  streets  lead  the 
visitor  on  and  on  over  innumerable  and  weary  cobble- 
stones. 

To  see  what  are  called  the  "  show-places  "  in  the  town, 
the  visitor  will  probably  do  best  to  take  a  human  guide,  and 
give  himself  up  to  his  care  for  one  day.  He  will  then  see 
in  detail  what  we  can  only  indicate  here — the  relics  of  a 


THE  HARZ  MOUNTAINS  73 

wonderful  Tenth  Century  city.  He  will  be  shown  the  re- 
mains of  the  imperial  Dom,  and  what  is  said  to  be  a  votive 
altar  of  the  early  Saxons  ;  and  what  is  more  interesting,  be- 
cause more  authentic,  the  walls  of  the  ancient  Kaiserbaus, 
erected  by  the  Emperor  Henry  III.  in  1059.  Its  style  is 
Romanesque,  and  its  proportions  and  situation  make  many 
similar  buildings  of  a  later  date  look  mean  and  poor. 

But  ancient  Goslar  has  already  a  fashionable  life  of  its 
own,  and  affects,  to  some  extent,  the  manners  of  to-day. 
It  does  not  attempt  to  compete  with  Harzburg  or  the  more 
modern  watering-places  of  Blankenburg  or  Wernigerode, 
but  it  is  a  watering-place,  and  it  has  its  own  particular 
promenade. 

Among  the  antiquities  of  Goslar  we  must  not  omit  to 
speak  of  the  mines.  About  a  mile  up  the  valley,  in  a  south- 
ward direction,  there  is  a  mine  that  has  been  worked  for  at 
least  eight  centuries,  yielding  "  gold  and  silver,  copper,  lead, 
zinc,  sulphur,  vitriol  and  alum."  We  repeat  the  catalogue 
of  minerals  as  given  to  strangers  who  visit  the  Rammels- 
berg  mine,  but  at  the  present  time  there  is  little  activity, 
and  the  yield  hardly  pays  the  expense  of  working. 

The  situation  of  Harzburg,  the  next  town  on  our  route, 
at  the  head  of  a  little  valley,  closed  in  on  either  side  by 
woods,  will  remind  the  traveller  of  the  watering  places  of 
the  Pyrenees.  It  is  in  a  cul-de-sac,  from  which  there  is  no 
easy  escape,  except  by  returning  northward  into  the  plains. 
As  we  drive  up  the  valley,  past  the  railway  terminus,  we 
pass  a  long  line  of  scattered  cottages  of  the  peasants  before 
reaching  the  new  and  fashionable  Harzburg,  the  growth  of 
the  last  few  years.  The  road  is  wide  and  smooth  as  we 
leave  the  old  village  behind  us ;  on  either  side  are  large 
hotels,  out-door  cafes,  and  private,  park-like  villas,  with 


74  GERMANY 

prettily  laid  out  gardens.  Through  the  gates  of  one  of 
these  gardens  the  driver  turns,  and  stops  at  the  verandah  of 
a  large  noisy  hotel.  The  Juliushalle  is  so  celebrated  for  its 
(German)  comforts  and  its  admirable  cuisine,  and  is  so  popu- 
lar as  a  boarding-house  and  bathing  establishment,  that  it  is 
seldom,  during  the  height  of  the  season,  that  chance  way- 
farers can  be  accommodated.  It  is  a  large,  rambling  booth- 
like  building,  with  a  strong  sense  of  cooking  and  good  liv- 
ing pervading  it — an  odour  which,  combined  with  tobacco, 
clings  to  the  valley  on  a  summer's  night  and  quite  over- 
whelms the  scent  of  the  pines. 

It  is  evening  when  we  stroll  up  the  valley,  and  the  peas- 
ants are  returning  from  the  mountains ;  cattle,  sheep,  pigs, 
goats  and  geese  line  the  roads,  and  the  people  all  stop  to 
stare  as  usual.  We  have  only  been  in  the  mountains  a  few 
days,  but  these  figures  and  the  lines  of  fir-trees  above  our 
heads  seem  strangely  familiar.  Where  have  we  seen  these 
grave  peasants  in  long  coats,  these  wooden-faced  women 
with  baskets  on  their  backs,  these  spotted  cows,  flat-sided 
pigs  and  uniform  geese  ?  Where  these  formal-looking 
houses,  rows  of  stiff-looking  trees,  white,  staring  dogs  and 
grave,  fat-faced  children  ?  It  is  the  child's  box  of  German 
toys,  suddenly  opened  and  turned  out  before  us ;  the  strange 
impression  produced  upon  a  child — who  shall  say  how  many 
years  ago  ? — reproduced  in  life  before  our  eyes.  Here  are 
all  the  living  materials  for  Noah's  Arks  and  Christmas-trees. 
Noah,  with  his  long  brown  coat  in  stiff  wooden  folds  and 
his  hat  and  stick  as  presented  to  us  in  childhood ;  his  wife 
and  family  in  red,  brown  and  buff  standing  staring  vacantly 
in  a  row ;  the  shepherd  with  his  horn  and  gigantic  crook 
painted  green  ;  cows  and  goats  walking  home  two  by  two ; 
and  pigs  lying  flat  upon  the  ground,  like  little  toys  thrown 


THE  HARZ  MOUNTAINS  75 

down.  Under  the  trees,  as  the  sun  goes  down,  our  Christ- 
mas-tree is  lighted  up,  and  the  figures  that  move  before  us 
only  want  packing  up  and  selling  at  two  sous  each  at  a 
child's  bazaar. 

There  are  clouds  at  the  head  of  the  valley  next  morning, 
and  behind  the  clouds  it  is  raining  on  the  Brocken  ;  but  the 
sun  is  so  hot  by  ten  o'clock  that  we  are  glad  to  get  out  of 
the  valley  and  walk  up  through  the  woods,  which  we  enter 
by  a  wicket  gate  nearly  opposite  to  the  Jutiushalle  to  the 
Burgberg,  or  castle  hill,  just  above  the  town.  In  about  a 
quarter  of  an  hour  we  are  surprised  to  find  ourselves  at  the 
summit.  Whether  it  is  worth  while  for  any  one  to  walk  up 
to  this  noisy  little  beer-garden,  where  the  shouts  of  waiters 
and  the  clink  of  glasses  drown  every  other  sound,  we  will 
not  say.  The  walk  through  the  woods  gives  us  beautiful 
peeps  of  the  valley,  and  we  see  as  on  a  map  beneath  us  the 
chalets  and  gardens  that  are  rising  in  every  direction,  and 
covering  every  available  plot  of  ground.  From  the  top  the 
view  is  much  impeded  by  the  masses  of  fir-trees ;  but  we 
obtain  a  good  idea  of  the  formation  of  the  valley  and  in 
clear  weather  see  the  distant  peaks  and  slopes  of  the  upper 
Harz. 

From  Harzburg  there  is  a  carriage-road  to  the  inn  at  the 
top  of  the  Brocken,  but  the  pleasantest  way  is  to  drive  to 
Ilsenberg  and  then  walk,  the  distance  from  the  latter  being 
about  seven  miles.  The  walk  is  altogether  beautiful 
through  woods,  by  waterfalls,  and  under  the  shadow  of 
great  rocks,  until  the  upper  and  more  Alpine  region  is 
reached.  We  pass  through  open  glades  and  pastures  here 
and  there,  then  into  a  thick  forest  of  pines,  then  out  again  on 
to  the  road  for  a  while,  following  the  windings  of  the  Use. 
On  our  left  hand  as  we  ascend,  an  almost  perpendicular 


76  GERMANY 

ridge  of  rock  towers  over  the  valley,  and  we  pass  a  little 
sign-post  which  tells  us  that,  by  a  digression  of  three- 
quarters  of  an  hour,  we  can  ascend  the  Ilsestein.  From 
this  prominence  where  an  iron  cross  is  shining  in  the 
sun  about  350  feet  above  our  heads  there  are  views  of 
scenery  wilder  and  more  grand  than  anything  that  can  be 
imagined  from  below.  Continuing  the  ascent,  which 
changes  every  moment  from  rocks  and  streams  to  the  quiet 
and  solitude  of  pines  and  firs, — now  walking  on  a  carpet  of 
living  moss  or  dead  fir  cones,  now  coming  upon  a  little 
garden  of  wild  flowers,  red,  white  and  blue,  under  our  feet, 
with  red  berries,  Alpine  roses  and  blue  forget-me-nots,  pur- 
ple heath  in  the  distance,  and  above  our  heads  mosses  and 
creepers  growing  round  projecting  boulders — we  come  sud- 
denly upon  a  little  plantation  of  toy  fir-trees,  from  four  to  six 
inches  high,  railed  off  like  a  miniature  park — a  nursery  for 
forests  for  our  great-grandchildren  to  walk  in  when  the 
trees  above  our  heads  are  turned  into  the  eaves  and  gables 
of  towns.  No  one  touches  these  plantations,  which  are  to 
be  seen  on  the  mountain-side  in  various  sizes,  planted  out 
wider  year  by  year,  as  they  grow  larger  until  they  spread 
into  a  living  forest. 

The  path  now  leaves  the  stream  and  all  traces  of  the 
road,  and  we  enter  upon  open  ground,  up  a  steep  and  stony 
path,  across  heather  and  furze  and  between  great  blocks  of 
granite,  where  there  is  no  track  visible  ;  then  into  more 
woods  and  so  by  an  easy  ascent  of  three  hours  to  the  top 
of  the  Brocken.  The  air  has  been  crisp  and  keen,  the  sky 
is  almost  cloudless,  and  the  aspect  of  the  mountain  during 
the  last  half-hour  reminds  us  for  the  first  time  of  Switzer- 
land. We  are  climbing  on  up  the  last  steep  ascent,  strewn 
with  enormous  moss-grown  boulders,  which  hide  the  view 


THE  HARZ  MOUNTAINS  77 

above  us,  and  are  unaware  until  we  are  within  a  few  yards 
of  the  inn  that  we  have  reached  the  summit  of  the  famous 
Blocksberg,  the  spot  haunted  by  spectres,  witches  and 
bogies  from  the  earliest  times. 

Here  we  are  in  the  Toy  Country  again ;  but  this  time  it 
is  Noah  and  his  family  that  we  see  before  us.  The  inn  on 
the  Brocken  is  the  identical  form  of  the  packing-case  which 
the  religious  world  of  all  nations  has  vulgarized  into  a  play- 
thing for  children.  There  is  the  host  with  his  three  sons 
coming  out  to  meet  us,  the  people  walking  two  and  two, 
and  the  horses,  sheep,  pigs  and  goats  all  stowed  away  at  the 
great  side-doors.  The  resemblance  is  irresistible  and  more 
fascinating  to  our  minds  than  the  legends  and  mysteries 
with  which  German  imagination  has  peopled  this  district. 

Of  the  bogie  which  haunts  the  Brocken,  the  famous  op- 
tical illusion  which,  under  certain  conditions  of  the  atmos- 
phere reflects  figures  of  enormous  size  on  the  clouds,  we 
can  only  speak  by  hearsay,  as  it  is  seldom  seen — but  once 
or  twice  during  the  summer.  The  spectre  is  said  to  appear 
at  sunset  or  "  whenever  the  mists  happen  to  ascend  perpen- 
dicularly out  of  the  valley,  on  the  side  opposite  to  the  sun 
and  leave  the  mountain-top  itself  free  from  vapour.  The 
shadow  of  the  mountain  is  reflected  against  the  perpendic- 
ular fall  of  the  rising  vapour  as  it  were  against  a  gigantic 
wall.  The  inn  then  becomes  a  palace  in  size,  and  the 
human  beings  on  the  summit  become  giants."  This 
spectre  and  a  dance  of  the  witches  on  the  eve  of  May-day 
are  the  two  "  associations  of  the  Brocken,"  which  no  trav- 
eller comes  away  without  hearing  of,  nor  without  having 
pointed  out  to  him  the  great  granite  blocks  called  the 
"Witches'  Altar"  the  "Devil's  Pulpit"  and  other  monu- 
ments commemorative,  it  is  said,  of  the  conversion  of  the 


78  GERMANY 

early  Saxons  to  Christianity.  The  ordinary  aspect  of  the 
Brocken  is  described  in  a  few  words  by  Andersen.  "  It 
gives  me,"  he  says,  "  an  idea  of  a  northern  tumulus  on  a 
grand  scale.  Here  stone  lies  piled  on  stone,  and  a  strange 
silence  rests  over  the  whole.  Not  a  bird  twitters  in  the 
low  pines;  round  about  us  are  white  grave-flowers  growing 
in  the  high  moss,  and  stones  lie  in  masses  on  the  sides  of 
the  mountain-top,  but  everything  was  in  a  mist ;  it  began 
to  blow  and  the  wind  drove  the  clouds  onwards  over  the 
mountain's  top  as  if  they  were  flocks  of  sheep."  And  thus 
it  is  in  a  few  minutes  with  us.  In  less  time  than  it  takes 
to  write  these  lines  the  whole  aspect  of  the  mountain 
has  changed,  the  clouds  have  come  up  from  the  valleys  and 
we  are  under  a  veil  of  mist.  Here  and  there  it  has  cleared 
for  a  moment,  and  revealed  to  us  the  only  spectres  of  the 
Brocken  we  ever  saw  during  our  stay — sad,  wet  and  weary 
travellers  waiting  for  the  view.  Another  minute  and  they 
disappear  in  the  clouds,  and  the  strains  of  Gounod's  music 
coming  from  the  Brockenhaus,  and  the  sounds  of  voices  and 
the  clinking  of  glasses  make  us  beat  a  retreat.  The  transi- 
tion to  the  scene  within  is  as  startling  as  a  transformation 
scene  in  a  pantomime,  and  almost  as  grotesque.  Here  are 
at  least  sixty  people  crowded  together, — English,  Americans, 
French,  Spaniards  and  Germans,  the  latter  already  hard  at 
work  on  the  viands  which  the  slaves  of  the  Harz  had 
brought  up  from  the  valleys  on  their  backs.  The  accommo- 
dation for  travellers  is,  of  course,  rough  and  plain,  but  we 
are  all  sheltered  from  the  pitiless  storm  outside,  and  are  kept 
alive  until  morning. 

The  day  breaks  and  the  sun  rises  over  the  plains  of 
Europe,  while  we  sixty  travellers  are  enveloped  in  mist. 
There  is  a  view  at  sunrise  here  once  in  a  summer,  which 


THE  HARZ  MOUNTAINS  79 

those  who  have  not  slept  on  the  Rigi  or  Mount  Pilatus,  in 
Switzerland,  describe  as  surpassingly  beautiful.  It  is  a  re- 
lief to  descend  again  into  the  region  of  sunshine,  to  walk 
across  green  pastures  and  in  moss-covered  woods,  to  rest  by 
picturesque  waterfalls  and  hear  the  thunder  of  the  stream 
swollen  by  the  clouds  that  we  have  left  behind  us.  It  is  a 
beautiful  romantic  walk  by  the  footpaths  down  to  Wer- 
nigerode. 

It  is  a  sudden  change  to  civilization  to  approach  Wer- 
nigerode  from  the  mountains.  On  descending  from  the 
Brocken  we  are  scarcely  prepared  for  a  macadamized  road 
a  mile  long,  lined  with  modern  villas  and  pleasure-gardens 
and  to  see  fine  carriages  and  horses  and  people  driving 
about  in  the  fashions  of  Berlin.  But  changes  are  being 
made  rapidly  at  Wernigerode :  the  castle  and  beautiful 
park  with  its  woods  that  skirt  the  northern  slopes  of  the 
mountains,  remain,  but  the  property  is  passing  into  Prussian 
hands  and  the  old  town  itself,  which  was  modernized  after 
the  fire  in  1844,  will  soon  lose  its  antique  character. 

There  are  a  few  fine  old  timber  houses  left,  and  the 
Rathaus  is  both  picturesque  and  curious. 

There  is  a  good  carriage  road  to  Elbingerode,  past  which, 
with  its  hard-working  and  dingy  population,  through  the 
valleys  where  the  smoke  hangs  over  us,  and  the  fumes  from 
the  mines  seem  to  blight  the  land,  through  dreary  valleys, 
with  strange  forms  of  rocks  on  either  side,  we  come  in 
about  three  hours  to  the  village  of  Rubeland,  deep  in  the 
gorge  through  which  runs  the  river  Bode.  Here,  as  at  El- 
bingerode, there  is  no  thought  of  natural  beauty,  and  the 
valley  is  picturesque  in  spite  of  its  inhabitants. 

The  general  aspect  is  of  work,  smoke  and  the  grinding 
of  machinery,  and  the  people  from  their  appearance,  might 


8o  GERMANY 

have  come  from  Staffordshire,  in  England.  On  a  fine  sum- 
mer's day  many  visitors  come  to  see  the  celebrated  stalactite 
caverns,  and  give  Rubeland  for  the  time  a  holiday  aspect. 

These  stalactite  caverns,  which  extend  for  long  distances 
under  the  limestone  rocks  at  Rubeland,  assume  the  most 
fantastic  shapes,  and  when  lighted  up  are  a  wonderful  sight. 
The  principal  caves  shown  to  visitors  are  the  Baumannshohle 
and  the  Bielshohle,  the  former  a  natural  cavern  discovered 
more  than  two  hundred  years  ago.  It  is  now  entered  by  an 
opening  cut  in  the  rocks,  144  feet  above  the  village,  through 
which  visitors  descend  by  spiral  staircases  and  ladders.  The 
finest  stalactites  have  long  been  removed  from  Rubeland, 
and  it  is  only  here  and  there  that  we  get  a  glimpse  of  those 
wonderful  colours  which  have  inspired  German  poets  of  all 
ages. 

Passing  up  the  valley  of  the  Bode,  leaving  the  black  iron 
foundries  and  ochre  mines,  we  soon  arrive  at  a  bleak,  flat 
tableland,  where  the  air  is  keen  and  fresh,  and,  in  about 
two  hours  after  leaving  Rubeland,  turn  off  suddenly  from 
the  high  road  to  a  spot  where  a  view  bursts  upon  us  as  un- 
expected as  it  is  beautiful. 

We  are  at  the  ZiegenkofF,  on  the  heights  above  Blank- 
enburg,  a  promontory  1,360  feet  above  the  plains,  with  an 
uninterrupted  view  looking  northward  and  eastward,  which 
may  be  fairly  called  one  of  the  noblest  in  the  Harz. 

Descending  to  the  town,  we  find  the  streets  of  Blanken- 
burg  as  rough  and  ill-paved  as  any  artist  could  desire.  The 
buildings  are  most  interesting ;  there  is  something  to  study 
in  the  exterior  of  nearly  every  house,  and  the  outline  is 
varied  in  every  gable.  The  perspective  down  the  steep 
streets  near  the  old  market-place,  which  is  almost  under  the 
walls  of  the  castle,  is  full  of  variety  and  colour,  and  the 


THE  HARZ  MOUNTAINS  81 

figures  of  the  market  women  have  a  more  picturesque  as- 
pect than  in  any  other  town  in  the  Harz. 

Thale,  the  next  place  on  our  list  is  neither  a  town  nor  a 
village ;  it  is  a  place  which  it  is  almost  impossible  to  de- 
scribe satisfactorily,  and  about  which  no  two  people  are 
agreed.  There  is  so  little  to  see  in  Thale,  excepting  the 
inn,  that  we  may  at  once  ascend  the  mountain  on  the  op- 
posite side  of  the  Bode,  through  a  wood,  to  the  famous 
rock  called  the  Rosstrappe,  an  almost  perpendicular  ridge 
of  granite,  which  stands  out  like  a  wall,  and  hems  in  the 
entrance  to  the  valley.  There  is  a  path  to  the  most  pro- 
jecting point,  which  commands  a  view  up  and  down  the 
valley  of  the  Bode,  with  its  grey  rocks  and  trees,  overhang- 
ing precipices,  its  waterfalls  and  its  dark  recesses,  and  be- 
yond, towards  Treseburg,  mountains  rising  one  behind  the 
other,  covered  with  trees.  The  Rosstrappe  is  scarcely 
1,400  feet  above  the  sea-level,  but  its  shape,  like  a  narrow 
wedge,  and  its  isolated  position,  with  sides  descending 
almost  perpendicularly  beneath  us,  render  it  one  of  the 
most  striking  sights  in  the  Harz.  The  romantic  legend  of 
a  princess  having  leaped  across  this  valley  is  learned  by 
heart  by  every  visitor,  and  the  proof  of  the  feat  is  shown  in 
the  marks  of  a  gigantic  horse's  hoofs  on  the  rock  !  We 
will  not  attempt  to  describe  the  grandeur  of  the  view  from 
the  Rosstrappe,  because  immediately  opposite  to  us  is  an- 
other eminence  projecting  into  the  valley,  from  which  it  is 
even  more  remarkable.  The  valley  is  crossed  by  a  pre- 
cipitous descent  of  800  feet,  and  by  an  ascent  on  the  other 
side  by  a  staircase  cut  in  the  rock  with  1,100  steps  to  reach 
the  Hexen  Tanzplatz. 

At  Thale  the  tourist  who  is  merely  passing  through  the 
Harz  district  may  leave  the  mountains,  with  the  knowledge 


82  GERMANY 

that  it  is  in  this  neighbourhood  that  its  beauties  culminate ; 
unless  he  is  going  southward  through  Gernerode  to  Ballen- 
stedt,  where  there  is  a  railway  station.  The  pedestrian 
who  wishes  to  make  a  complete  tour  can  work  his  way 
from  Thale  westward  to  Clausthal  on  foot. 

At  Clausthal  we  are  in  a  district  where  the  whole  busi- 
ness and  population  are  underground.  There  are  bright 
green  fields,  beautiful  pastures,  old  timbered  houses  in 
gardens  full  of  flowers,  with  their  red-tiled  roofs,  with 
creepers  twining  round  them.  There  is  sweet  air  from 
the  mountains  and  such  freshness  in  nature  overhead  that 
the  aspect  of  the  human  population  filing  down  the  paths 
in  a  long  black  procession,  like  some  accursed  race,  throws 
a  gloom  over  the  landscape  this  morning  which  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  shake  off. 

Across  the  bright,  fresh  fields  again,  leaving  Clausthal 
and  the  great  smelting-works  in  the  valley  which  they  deso- 
late— a  walk  on  springy  turf  across  sweet  pastures  through 
park-like  little  forests  and  deep  glades,  between  regiments 
of  silent  pines  over  hill  and  dale  for  six  miles,  brings  us  to 
the  brow  of  a  hill,  from  which  we  first  see  Grund. 

In  the  midst  of  a  series  of  what  we  may  call  "  moun- 
tainettes,"  tinted  with  the  most  delicate  gradations  of  grey, 
we  see  sloping  woods  and  fields,  set  with  bright,  red-tiled 
gables  and  glittering  spires  and  little  paths  leading  from 
them,  with  processions  of  goats  and  cattle  coming  down, 
led  by  toy  shepherds,  and  hear  the  tinkle  of  innumerable 
bells  and  the  distant  mountain-horn.  This  is  our  first  im- 
pression of  Grund.  Winding  down  into  the  irregular 
streets,  where  old  men  and  women  are  seated  about,  and 
the  cattle  that  have  parted  from  the  droves  are  gravely 
walking  in  at  the  front  doors  of  their  homes,  unattended, 


THE  HARZ  MOUNTAINS  83 

we  stop  at  the  principal  inn,  in  front  of  a  market-place, 
which  occupies  a  few  yards  of  open  level  ground  in  the 
middle  of  the  town. 

After  visiting  Grund,  there  is  no  prettier  or  more  de- 
lightful way  of  quitting  this  district  than  through  the  valley 
northward  to  Lautenthal,  and  then  to  Seesen,  where  the 
system  of  railways  is  reached  again. 


THE  ILSENSTEIN 

HEINRICH  HEINE 

AND  now  the  students  prepared  to  depart.  Knap- 
sacks were  buckled,  the  bills,  which  were  moder- 
ate beyond  all  expectation,  were  settled,  the  two 
susceptible  housemaids,  upon  whose  pretty  countenances 
the  traces  of  successful  amours  were  plainly  visible, 
brought,  as  is  their  custom,  their  Brocken-bouquets  and 
helped  some  to  adjust  their  caps ;  for  all  of  which  they  were 
duly  rewarded  with  either  coppers  or  kisses.  Thus  we  all 
went  "  down-hill,"  albeit  one  party,  among  whom  were  the 
Swiss  and  Greifswalder,  took  the  road  towards  Schierke, 
and  the  other,  of  about  twenty  men,  among  whom  were  my 
"  land's  people  "  and  I,  led  by  a  guide,  went  through  the 
so-called  "  Snow-Holes  "  down  to  Ilsenburg. 

Such  a  head-over-heels,  break-neck  piece  of  business ! 
Halle  students  travel  quicker  than  the  Austrian  militia. 
Ere  I  knew  where  I  was,  the  bald  summit  of  the  mountain, 
with  groups  of  stones  strewed  over  it,  was  behind  us,  and 
we  went  through  the  fir-wood  which  I  had  seen  the  day  be- 
fore. The  sun  poured  down  a  cheerful  light  on  the  merry 
Burschen^  in  gaily  coloured  garb,  as  they  merrily  pressed 
onward  through  the  wood,  disappearing  here,  coming  to 
light  again  there,  running  in  marshy  places,  across  on  shak- 
ing trunks  of  trees,  climbing  over  shelving  steeps  by  grasp- 
ing the  projecting  tree-roots,  while  they  trilled  all  the  time  in 
the  merriest  manner,  and  were  answered  in  as  merry  echoes 


THE  ILSENSTEIN,  HARZ 


THE  ILSENSTEIN  85 

by  the  invisibly  plashing  rivulets  and  the  resounding  echo. 
When  cheerful  youth  and  beautiful  Nature  meet,  they 
mutually  rejoice. 

The  lower  we  descended,  the  more  delightfully  did  sub- 
terranean waters  ripple  around  us ;  only  here  and  there  they 
peeped  out  amid  rocks  and  bushes,  appearing  to  be  recon- 
noitring if  they  might  yet  come  to  light,  until  one  little 
spring  jumped  forth  boldly.  Then  followed  the  usual  show 
— the  bravest  one  makes  a  beginning,  and  then  the  great 
multitude  of  hesitators,  suddenly  inspired  with  courage,  rush 
forth  to  join  the  first.  A  multitude  of  springs  now  leaped 
in  haste  from  their  ambush,  united  with  the  leader,  and 
finally  formed  quite  an  important  brook,  which,  with  its 
innumerable  waterfalls  and  beautiful  windings,  ripples  adown 
the  valley.  This  is  now  the  Use — the  sweet,  pleasant  Use. 
She  flows  through  the  blest  Use  vale,  on  whose  sides  the 
mountains  gradually  rise  higher  and  higher,  being  clad 
even  to  their  base  with  beech-trees,  oaks  and  the  usual 
shrubs,  the  firs  and  other  needle  covered  evergreens  hav- 
ing disappeared;  for  that  variety  of  trees  prevails  upon 
the  Lower  Harz,  as  the  east  side  of  the  Brocken  is  called 
in  contradistinction  to  the  west  side,  or  Upper  Harz, 
being  really  much  higher  and  better  adapted  to  the  growth 
of  evergreens. 

No  pen  can  describe  the  merriment,  simplicity  and  gentle- 
ness with  which  the  Use  leaps  or  glides  amid  the  wildly 
piled  rocks  which  rise  in  her  path,  so  that  the  water 
strangely  whizzes  or  foams  in  one  place  amid  rifted  rocks, 
and  in  another  wells  through  a  thousand  crannies,  as  if 
from  a  giant  watering-pot,  and  then  in  collected  steam  trips 
away  over  the  pebbles  like  a  merry  maiden.  Yes,  the  old 
legend  is  true;  the  Use  is  a  princess,  who,  laughing  in 


86  GERMANY 

beauty,  runs  adown  the  mountain.  How  her  white  foam 
garment  gleams  in  the  sunshine !  How  her  silvered  scarf 
flutters  in  the  breeze !  How  her  diamonds  flash  !  The 
high  beech-tree  gazes  down  on  her  like  a  grave  father  se- 
cretly smiling  at  the  capricious  self-will  of  a  darling  child ; 
the  white  birch-trees  nod  their  heads  around  like  delighted 
aunts,  who  are,  however,  frightened  at  such  bold  leaps ;  the 
proud  oak  looks  on  like  a  not  over-pleased  uncle,  as  though 
he  must  pay  for  all  the  fine  weather ;  the  birds  in  the  air 
sing  their  share  in  their  joy ;  the  flowers  on  the  banks 
whisper  :  "  Oh,  take  us  with  thee  !  take  us  with  thee,  dear 
sister  ! "  but  the  wild  maiden  may  not  be  withheld,  and  she 
leaps  onward,  and  suddenly  seizes  the  dreaming  poet,  and 
there  streams  over  me  a  flower-rain  of  ringing  gleams  and 
flashing  tones,  and  all  my  senses  are  lost  in  beauty  and 
splendour,  as  I  hear  only  the  sweet  flute-like  voice : 

I  am  the  Princess  Use, 

And  dwell  in  Ilsenstein  ; 
Come  with  me  to  my  castle, 

Thou  shah  be  blest — and  mine  ! 

With  ever-flowing  fountains 

I'll  cool  thy  weary  brow  ; 
Thou'lt  lose  amid  their  rippling 

The  cares  which  grieve  thee  now. 

In  my  white  arms  reposing, 

And  on  my  snow-white  breast, 
Thou'lt  dream  of  old,  old  legends. 

And  sink  in  joy  to  rest. 

I'll  kiss  thee  and  caress  thee, 

As  in  the  ancient  day 
I  kissed  the  Emperor  Henry, 

Who  long  has  passed  away. 


THE  ILSENSTEIN  87 

The  dead  are  dead  and  silent, 

Only  the  living  love ; 
And  I  am  fair  and  blooming, 

— Dost  feel  my  wild  heart  move  ? 

And  in  my  heart  is  beating, 

My  crystal  castle  rings, 
Where  many  a  knight  and  lady 

In  merry  measure  springs. 

Silk  trains  are  softly  rustling, 

Spurs  ring  from  night  to  morn, 
And  dwarfs  are  gaily  drumming, 

And  blow  the  golden  horn. 

As  round  the  Emperor  Henry, 

My  arms  round  thee  shall  fall ; 
I  held  his  ears — he  heard  not 

The  trumpet's  warning  call. 

Finally  we  reached  the  Ilsenstein.  This  is  an  enormous 
granite  rock,  which  rises  high  and  boldly  from  a  glen.  On 
three  sides  it  is  surrounded  by  woody  hills,  but  from  the 
fourth,  the  north,  there  is  an  open  view,  and  we  gaze  upon 
the  Ilsenburg  and  the  Use  lying  far  below,  and  our  glances 
wander  beyond  into  the  lower  land.  On  the  tower-like 
summit  of  the  rock  stands  a  great  iron  cross,  and  in  case  of 
need  there  is  also  here  a  resting-place  for  four  human  feet. 

As  Nature,  through  picturesque  position  and  form,  has 
adorned  the  Ilsenstein  with  strange  and  beautiful  charms,  so 
has  also  Legend  poured  over  it  her  rosy  light.  According 
to  Gottschalk,  "  the  people  say  that  there  once  stood  here 
an  enchanted  castle,  in  which  dwelt  the  fair  Princess  Use, 
who  yet  bathes  every  morning  in  the  Use.  He  who  is  so 
fortunate  as  to  hit  upon  the  exact  time  and  place,  will  be 
led  by  her  into  the  rock  where  her  castle  lies,  and  receive  a 


88  GERMANY 

royal  reward."  Others  narrate  a  pleasant  legend  of  the 
loves  of  the  Lady  Use  and  of  the  Knight  of  Westenburg, 
which  has  been  romantically  sung  by  one  of  our  most  noted 
poets  in  the  Evening  Journal.  Others  again  say  that  it  was 
the  old  Saxon  Emperor  Henry  who  passed  in  pleasure  his 
imperial  hours  with  the  water-nymph  Use  in  her  enchanted 
castle.  A  later  author,  Niemann,  who  has  written  a  Harz 
guide,  in  which  the  heights  of  the  hills,  variations  of  the 
compass,  town  finances  and  similar  matters  are  described 
with  praiseworthy  accuracy,  asserts,  however,  that  "  what 
is  narrated  of  the  Princess  Use  belongs  entirely  to  the  realm 
of  fable."  So  all  men  to  whom  a  beautiful  princess  has 
never  appeared  assert ;  but  we,  who  have  been  especially 
favoured  by  fair  ladies,  know  better.  And  this  the  Emperor 
Henry  knew  too !  It  was  not  without  cause  that  the  old 
Saxon  Emperors  held  so  firmly  to  their  native  Harz.  Let 
any  one  only  turn  over  the  leaves  of  the  fair  Liinenburg 
Chronicle,  where  the  good  old  gentlemen  are  represented  in 
wondrously  true-hearted  woodcuts  as  well-weaponed,  high 
on  their  mailed  war-steeds,  the  holy  imperial  crown  on 
their  blessed  heads,  sceptre  and  sword  in  firm  hands; 
and  then  in  their  sentimental  moustached  and  bearded 
faces  he  can  plainly  read  how  when  they  lingered  in  dis- 
tant lands  they  often  longed  for  the  familiar  rustling  of  the 
Harz  forests  and  their  sweethearts  the  Harz  princesses.  Yes, 
even  when  in  the  orange  and  poison-gifted  Italy  whither 
they,  with  their  followers  were  often  enticed  by  the  desire 
of  becoming  German  Emperors,  through  that  German  lust 
for  title  which  finally  destroyed  Emperor  and  realm. 

I,  however,  advise  every  one  who  may  hereafter  stand  on 
the  summit  of  the  Ilsenburg  to  think  neither  of  Emperor 
and  crown,  nor  of  the  fair  Use  j  but  simply  of  his  own  feet. 


THE  ILSENSTEIN  89 

For  as  I  stood  there  lost  in  thought,  I  suddenly  heard  the 
subterranean  music  of  the  enchanted  castle  and  saw  the 
mountains  around  begin  to  stand  on  their  heads,  while  the 
red  tiled  roofs  of  Ilsenburg  were  dancing  and  green  trees 
flew  through  the  air,  until  all  was  green  and  blue  before 
my  eyes,  and  I,  overcome  by  giddiness,  would  assuredly 
have  fallen  into  the  abyss,  had  I  not,  in  the  dire  need  of  my 
soul,  clung  fast  to  the  iron  cross.  No  one  who  reflects  on 
the  critically  ticklish  situation  in  which  I  then  stood  can 
possibly  find  fault  with  me  for  having  done  this. 


SAXONY 

FINDLAT  MUIRHEAD 

SAXONY  is  the  name  successively  given  in  German 
history  to  a  mediaeval  duchy  in  northern  Germany, 
to  a  later  Electorate,  which  afterwards  became  the 
present  kingdom  of  Saxony,  and  to  a  ducal  province  of 
Prussia.  The  last  was  formed  directly  out  of  part  of  the 
second  in  1815,  but  the  connection  between  the  first  and 
second  is  neither  local  nor  ethnographical,  but  political. 

The  Saxons  (Lat.  Saxones^  Ger.  Sachseri),  a  tribe  of  the 
Teutonic  stock,  are  first  mentioned  by  Ptolemy  as  occupy- 
ing the  southern  part  of  the  Cimbrian  peninsula  between 
the  Elbe,  Eider  and  Trave,  the  district  now  known  as  Hol- 
stein.  The  name  is  most  commonly  derived  from  "  sahs" 
a  short  knife,  though  some  authorities  explain  it  as  mean- 
ing "  settled,"  in  contrast  to  the  Suevi  or  "  wandering  " 
people.  By  the  end  of  the  Third  Century,  when  we  hear 
of  a  "Saxon  Confederation,"  embracing  the  Cherusci, 
Chauci  and  Angrivarii,  and  perhaps  corresponding  to  the 
group  of  tribes  called  Ingaevones  by  Tacitus,  the  chief  seat 
of  the  nation  had  been  transferred  south  of  the  Elbe  to  the 
lands  on  both  sides  of  the  Weser  now  occupied  by  Olden- 
burg and  Hanover. 

The  Saxons  were  one  of  the  most  warlike  and  adventur- 
ous of  the  Teutonic  peoples,  and  they  not  only  steadily  ex- 
tended the  borders  of  their  home,  but  made  colonizing  and 
piratical  excursions  by  sea  far  and  wide. 


SAXONY  91 

The  Saxons  who  remained  in  Germany  (d/t-Sachsen  or 
Old  Saxons),  gradually  pushed  their  borders  further  and 
further  until  they  approached  the  Rhine  and  touched  the 
Elbe,  the  North  Sea  and  the  Harz  Mountains.  In  531 
they  joined  their  neighbours  the  Franks  in  a  successful  ex- 
pedition against  the  Thuringians,  and  received  as  their  spoil 
the  conquered  territory  between  the  Harz  and  the  Unstrut. 
Their  settlements  here  were,  however,  forced  to  acknowl- 
edge the  supremacy  of  the  Franks,  and  from  this  period 
may  be  dated  the  beginning  of  the  long  strife  between  these 
two  peoples  which  finally  resulted  in  the  subjugation  of  the 
Saxons.  During  the  reigns  of  the  weak  Merovingian  kings 
who  succeeded  Lothair  I.  on  the  Frankish  throne,  the 
Saxons  pushed  into  northern  Thuringia,  afterwards  known 
as  the  Alt-Mark.  Pippin  the  Short  obtained  a  tem- 
porary advantage  over  them  in  753  and  imposed  a  tribute  of 
three  hundred  horses,  but  their  final  conquest  was  reserved 
for  Charlemagne.  At  this  time  the  Saxons  did  not  form  a 
single  state  under  one  ruler,  but  were  divided  into  the  four 
districts  of  Westphalia  to  the  west  of  the  Weser,  Eastphalia 
chiefly  to  the  east  of  that  river,  Engern  or  Angria  along 
both  banks  and  Nordalbingia  in  Holstein.  The  gau$  were 
independent,  each  having  an  ealdorman  of  its  own ;  and 
they  only  combined  in  time  of  war  or  other  emergency  to 
choose  a  berzog^  or  common  leader.  From  the  partition  in 
1815  to  the  war  of  1866  the  history  of  Saxony  is  mainly  a 
narrative  of  the  slow  growth  of  constitutionalism  and  popu- 
lar liberty  within  its  limits.  Its  influence  on  the  general 
history  of  Europe  ceased  when  the  old  German  Empire  was 
dissolved.  In  the  new  Empire  it  is  too  completely  over- 
shadowed by  Prussia  to  have  any  objective  importance  by 
itself. 


92  GERMANY 

The  kingdom  of  Saxony  is  the  third  constituent  of  the 
German  Empire  in  point  of  population  and  the  fifth  in 
point  of  area.  With  the  exception  of  the  two  small  ex- 
claves  of  Ziegelhein  in  Saxe-Altenburg  and  Leibschwitz  on 
the  borders  of  Reuss,  Saxe- Weimar  and  Saxe-Altenburg,  it 
forms  a  compact  whole  of  a  triangular  shape,  its  base  ex- 
tending from  the  north-east  to  south-west,  and  its  apex 
pointing  north-west.  On  the  south  it  is  bounded  by 
Bohemia,  on  the  west  by  Bavaria  and  the  Thuringian 
states,  and  on  the  remaining  sides  by  Prussia.  Except 
on  the  south,  where  the  Erzgebirge  forms  at  once  the 
limit  of  the  kingdom  and  of  the  Empire,  the  boundaries 
are  entirely  political.  For  administrative  purposes  the 
kingdom  of  Saxony  is  divided  into  the  four  districts  of 
Bautzen  in  the  south-east,  Dresden  in  the  north-east, 
Leipzig  in  the  north-west  and  Zwickau  in  the  south-west. 

Saxony  belongs  almost  entirely  to  the  central  mountain 
region  of  Germany,  only  the  districts  along  the  north 
border  and  around  Leipzig  descending  into  the  great  north- 
European  plain.  The  average  elevation  of  the  country  is 
not,  however,  great ;  and  it  is  more  properly  described  as 
hilly  than  as  mountainous.  The  chief  mountain  range  is 
the  Erzgebirge,  stretching  for  ninety  miles  along  the  south 
border,  and  reaching  in  the  Fichtelbergs  (3,979  and  3,953 
feet),  the  highest  elevation  in  the  kingdom.  The  west 
and  south-west  half  of  Saxony  is  more  or  less  occupied  by 
the  ramifications  and  subsidiary  groups  of  this  range,  one  of 
which  is  known  from  its  position  as  the  Central  Saxon 
chain  and  another  lower  group  still  further  north  as  the 
Oschatz  group.  The  south-east  angle  of  Saxony  is  occu- 
pied by  the  mountains  of  Upper  Lusatia,  which  form  the 
link  between  the  Erzgebirge  and  the  Riesengebirge  in  the 


SAXONY  93 

great  Sudetic  chain.  North-west  from  this  group,  and 
along  both  banks  of  the  Elbe,  which  divides  it  from  the 
Erzgebirge,  extends  the  picturesque  mountain  region  known 
as  the  "  Saxon  Switzerland."  The  action  of  water  and  ice 
upon  the  soft  sand-stone  of  which  the  hills  here  are  chiefly 
composed  has  produced  remarkable  formations  of  deep 
gorges  and  isolated  fantastic  peaks,  which,  however,  though 
both  beautiful  and  interesting,  by  no  means  recall  the 
characteristics  of  Swiss  scenery.  The  highest  summit  at- 
tains a  height  of  1,830  feet ;  but  the  more  interesting  peaks, 
as  the  Lilienstein,  Konigstein  and  the  Bastei,  are  lower. 
With  the  trifling  exception  of  the  south-east  of  Bautzen, 
which  sends  its  waters  by  the  Neisse  to  the  Oder,  Saxony 
lies  wholly  in  the  basin  of  the  Elbe,  which  has  a  navigable 
course  of  seventy-two  miles  through  the  kingdom.  Com- 
paratively few  of  the  smaller  streams  of  Saxony  flow 
directly  to  the  Elbe,  and  the  larger  tributaries  only  join  it 
beyond  the  Saxon  borders.  The  Mulde,  formed  of  two 
branches,  is  the  second  river  of  Saxony ;  others  are  the 
Black  Elster,  the  White  Elster,  the  Pleisse  and  the  Spree. 
There  are  no  lakes  of  any  size,  but  mineral  springs  are 
very  abundant.  The  best  known  is  at  Bad  Elster  in  the 
Voigtland. 

Saxony  owes  its  unusual  wealth  in  fruit  to  the  care  of  the 
paternal  elector  Augustus  (1553-1586),  who  is  said  never 
to  have  stirred  abroad  without  fruit  seeds  for  distribution, 
among  the  peasants  and  farmers.  Enormous  quantities  of 
cherries,  plums,  and  apples  are  annually  borne  by  the  trees 
round  Leipzig,  Dresden  and  Colditz.  The  cultivation  of 
the  vine  in  Saxony  is  respectable  for  its  antiquity,  though 
the  yield  is  insignificant. 

The  early  foundation  of  the  Leipzig  fairs  and  the  en- 


94  GERMANY 

lightened  policy  of  the  rulers  of  the  country  have  also  done 
much  to  develop  its  commercial  and  industrial  resources. 
Next  to  agriculture,  by  far  the  most  important  industry  is 
the  textile.  The  chief  seats  of  the  manufacture  are 
Zwickau,  Chemnitz,  Glauchau,  Meerane  and  Hohenstein 
in  the  south  of  Zwickau;  and  Camenz  Pulsnitz  and 
Bischofswerda  in  the  north  of  Dresden.  Lace-making,  dis- 
covered or  introduced  by  Barbara  Uttmann  in  the  latter 
half  of  the  Sixteenth  Century,  and  now  fostered  by  govern- 
ment schools,  has  long  been  an  important  domestic  industry 
among  the  villages  of  the  Erz  Mountains.  Stoneware  and 
earthenware  are  made  at  Chemnitz,  Zwickau,  Bautzen,  and 
Meissen,  porcelain  ("Dresden  china")  at  Meissen, 
chemicals  in  and  near  Leipzig.  Machinery  of  all  kinds 
is  produced,  from  the  sewing-machines  of  Dresden  to  the 
steam  locomotives  and  marine-engines  of  Chemnitz. 

The  very  large  printing-trade  of  Leipzig  encourages  the 
manufacture  of  printing-presses  in  that  city. 

Leipzig,  with  its  famous  and  still  frequented  fairs,  is  the 
focus  of  the  trade  of  Saxony.  The  fur  trade  between  east- 
ern and  western  Europe  and  the  book-trade  of  Germany 
centre  here.  Chemnitz,  Dresden,  Plauen,  Zwickau,  Zittau 
and  Bautzen  are  the  other  chief  commercial  cities. 

The  people  of  Saxony  are  chiefly  of  pure  Teutonic 
stock  ;  a  proportion  are  Germanized  Slavs,  and  in  the  south 
of  Bautzen  there  are  still  about  50,000  Wends,  who  retain 
their  peculiar  customs  and  language.  In  some  villages  near 
Bautzen  hardly  a  word  of  German  is  spoken. 

Saxony  claims  to  be  one  of  the  most  highly  educated 
countries  in  Europe  and  its  foundations  of  schools  and  uni- 
versities were  among  the  earliest  in  Germany.  Of  the 
four  universities  founded  by  the  Saxon  electors  in  Leipzig, 


SAXONY  95 

Jena,  Wittenberg  and  Erfurt,  only  the  first  is  included  in 
the  present  Kingdom  of  Saxony.  It  is  second  only  to  Ber- 
lin in  the  number  of  its  students.  The  conservatory  of 
music  at  Leipzig  enjoys  a  world-wide  reputation  ;  not  less 
the  art-collections  at  Dresden. 

Saxony  is  a  constitutional  monarchy  and  a  member  of  the 
German  Empire,  with  four  votes  in  the  federal  council  and 
twenty-three  in  the  Reichstag.  The  constitution  rests  on 
a  law  promulgated  on  4th  September,  1831,  and  subse- 
quently amended.  The  crown  is  hereditary  in  the  Alber- 
tine  Saxon  line,  with  reversion  to  the  Ernestine  line,  of 
which  the  Duke  of  Saxe- Weimar  is  now  the  head. 

For  administrative  purposes  Saxony  is  divided  into  four 
Kreishauptmannschafien^  or  governmental  departments,  sub- 
divided into  fifteen  Amtshauptmannschaften  and  one  hundred 
and  sixteen  Aemter.  The  cities  of  Dresden  and  Leipzig 
form  departments  by  themselves.  The  supreme  court  of 
law  for  both  civil  and  criminal  cases  is  in  the  Oberlandes- 
Gericht  at  Dresden,  subordinate  to  which  are  seven  other 
courts  in  the  other  principal  towns,  and  one  hundred  and 
five  inferior  tribunals.  The  German  imperial  code  was 
adopted  by  Saxony  in  1879.  Leipzig  is  the  seat  of  the  im- 
perial supreme  court. 


DRESDEN 

ARTHUR  SHAD  WELL  MARTIN 

DRESDEN,  the  capital  of  Saxony,  is  one  of  the 
most  important  cities  of  Germany,  whether 
viewed  from  an  artistic,  picturesque,  social,  or 
mercantile  point  of  view.  With  a  population  of  more  than 
300,000  souls,  it  is  beautifully  situated  on  both  sides  of  the 
Elbe  at  its  confluence  with  its  tributary  the  Weisseritz, 
about  100  miles  south  of  Berlin.  The  Old  Town,  with  its 
six  faubourgs  is  on  the  left  bank,  and  the  New  Town  on 
the  right.  These  are  connected  by  four  fine  bridges  called 
the  Augustus,  402  metres  long;  the  Mary,  231  metres;  the 
Albert,  316  metres;  and  a  new  one  commenced  in  1892. 
Dresden  is  one  of  the  prettiest  and  most  delightful  cities  of 
Germany.  It  abounds  in  handsome  edifices  and  public 
buildings  of  antiquarian  lore  and  historical  associations. 
The  surrounding  country  consists  of  low  hills  and  dales 
covered  with  plantations  and  vineyards.  On  almost  every 
side  the  city  is  approached  through  leafy  avenues  of  trees. 
On  account  of  its  delightful  situation  and  the  numerous 
objects  of  art  it  contains  it  is  known  to  tourists  as  "  the 
German  Florence,"  an  appellation  first  used  by  Herder. 

Dresden  was  hardly  known  to  history  till  1202,  when 
Henry  the  Illustrious,  Margrave  of  Meissen,  made  it  his 
capital,  built  the  first  stone  bridge  (Augustus),  and  gave  the 
city  its  charter.  After  his  death,  it  passed  successively  to 
Wenceslas  of  Bohemia,  and  the  Margrave  of  Brandenburg. 
When  Saxony  was  divided  between  the  Princes  Ernest  and 


DRESDEN  97 

Albert  in  1485,  the  city  fell  to  the  Albertine  line,  which 
held  it  thereafter.  George  "  le  Barbu  "  enlarged  it  and 
built  the  castle.  The  elector,  Maurice,  and  his  brother 
Augustus,  did  much  to  fortify  and  beautify  it.  It  blossomed 
into  splendour  and  prosperity  under  Augustus  II.  (1694- 
1733),  and  its  importance  was  maintained  under  the  rule  of 
his  son,  and  grandson.  The  city  suffered  terribly  during 
the  Seven  Years'  War,  being  bombarded  in  1760. 

Saxony  had  the  misfortune  to  be  always  on  the  losing 
side  in  European  politics.  She  was  against  Frederick  the 
Great ;  she  sided  with  Napoleon  j  and  in  the  Franco- 
Prussian  war  of  1870-1,  she  was  inclined  to  help  France. 
Naturally,  the  punishment  inflicted  by  failure  was  felt  in 
the  capital.  Dresden  has  seen  many  armies  encamped 
within  and  around  her  walls.  In  1806,  the  victorious 
French  entered  j  three  years  later  they  were  followed  by 
the  Austrians.  In  1812,  Dresden  was  the  meeting-place  of 
the  emperors  of  Austria  and  France,  the  King  of  Prussia 
and  the  reigning  princes  of  Germany.  In  1813,  Dresden 
played  a  great  part  in  the  history  of  nations.  Napoleon 
made  of  it  a  vast  entrenched  camp.  From  March  to  Oc- 
tober, the  allies  struggled  with  the  French  with  varying 
fortune.  On  the  retreat  of  the  French  one  of  the  but- 
tresses and  two  of  the  arches  of  the  old  bridge  were  des- 
troyed. In  1810,  the  French  had  already  begun  disman- 
tling the  fortifications;  this  work  was  finished  in  1817,  and 
the  ground  was  appropriated  to  gardens  and  boulevards. 

The  city  again  suffered  severely  during  the  general  period 
of  European  unrest  in  1849-50,  but  the  damage  was  soon 
repaired. 

Dresden  is  rich  in  artistic  monuments  and  treasures  of 
the  arts  and  crafts  that  appeal  to  the  tourist,  the  scholar  and 


98  GERMANY 

the  antiquarian.  Among  the  notable  edifices  and  museums 
on  the  left  bank  of  the  Elbe  should  be  mentioned  the  royal 
palace,  called  the  George  Palace,  because  it  was  commenced 
in  1534  by  Duke  George.  It  contains  collections  of  gold- 
smith's work,  precious  stones,  etc.  In  the  Zwinger,  the 
ethnographical,  mineralogical,  mathematical  and  physical 
collections  are  installed.  The  New  Museum  contains  one 
of  the  most  famous  galleries  of  Europe,  with  nearly  three 
thousand  pictures  on  its  walls.  Another  celebrated  building 
is  the  Albertium,  formerly  the  Arsenal.  This  is  a  fine  ex- 
ample of  pure  Renaissance  architecture,  having  been  built 
1559-1563 ;  it  contains  archives  and  antiquarian  collections. 
Among  the  many  churches  may  be  mentioned  St.  Sophia, 
built  as  a  convent  chapel  (1351-1357).  Another  edifice 
worthy  of  record  is  the  palace  built  in  1737  by  Count 
Briihl,  the  minister  of  Augustus  II.  Near  it,  is  the  Bruhl 
terrace  approached  by  a  grand  flight  of  steps,  on  which  are 
Schilling's  groups  of  Morning,  Evening,  Day  and  Night. 
The  terrace,  which  forms  a  favourite  strolling  place  for  the 
citizens,  commands  a  beautiful  view  of  the  surrounding 
country. 


THURINGIA 

FLORENCE  ELYE  NORRIS 

"     y\     ^^  t*le  kreatn  °^  tny  mouth  is  that  sharp,  invig- 
/  \      ourating  wind  which  steels  the  nerves  and  aspira- 
JL     JL  tions  of  the   sons   and   daughters  of  Thuringia ; 
makes  their  hearts  susceptible  of  love,  and  tenacious  of  their 
poetical  traditions  ;  which    maintains   their  feeling  for  the 
right,  their  naive,  true  nature,  and — their  heavenly  rough- 
ness ! " 

In  these  words,  the  lamented  German  novelist  Marlitt — 
herself  a  Thuringian  born — bears  testimony  to  the  invigour- 
ating  influence  of  her  native  air  upon  the  character  and 
idiosyncrasy  of  its  children.  We  also,  strangers  and  pil- 
grims in  the  land  as  we  are,  feel  inclined  to  add  our  little 
paean  of  praise  of  their  balsamic,  tonic  qualities,  when,  after 
a  prolonged  spell  of  the  atmosphere  of  cities,  we  draw  a  new 
breath,  physical  and  mental  upon  some  bit  of  moorland  of 
the  wild  rolling  country  in  the  midst  of  which  lies  the  little 
red-roofed  town  of  Eisenach.  Around  us,  as  far  as  the  eye 
can  see,  stretches  the  vast,  undulating  Thuringian  Forest, 
"  like  the  green  ribbon  of  an  order  upon  the  breast  of  Ger- 
many," and  before  us,  rising  out  of  a  richly-wooded  height, 
just  above  the  town,  is  that  jewel  enshrined  in  every  Ger- 
man heart,  Thuringia's  Fortress-Queen,  the  Wartburg  of 
history  and  song. 

Between  the  thick  masses  of  foliage,  still  in  all  the  ex- 
quisite variety  of  their  first  summer  tints,  are  bold  projec- 
tions of  conglomerate  rocks,  down  whose  rugged  sides 


ioo  GERMANY 

trickle  the  streams  which  go  to  feed  the  Elbe,  the  Weser, 
and  the  Rhine,  and  to  water  the  valleys,  whose  red  soil 
contrasts  with  the  green  of  the  meadows,  in  which  the 
mowers  are  already  at  work.  Green,  at  least,  they  look  to 
us  from  our  moor,  but  we  know  that  with  the  waving 
grasses  flowers  of  every  hue — brilliant  poppies,  gold-hearted 
marguerites,  rich  red  clover,  St.  John's  wort,  great  cam- 
panulas, the  blue  scabious,  the  delicate  eye-bright — are  fall- 
ing under  the  hands  of  these  Tarquins  of  the  scythe.  The 
scent  of  their  dying  breath  is  borne  upwards  to  us,  and 
mingles  with  the  warm,  aromatic,  fruity  odour  of  the  firs, 
as  we  leave  the  breezy  moorland,  with  its  carpet  of  wild 
thyme  and  pale  purple  heather,  and  turn  into  one  of  the 
many  sheltered  paths  which  lead  into  the  heart  of  the  woods. 
Here,  after  plucking  some  of  the  almost  crimson  blossoms 
of  the  wild-briar  rose,  or  a  bunch  of  the  little  white  sweet- 
scented  orchis  growing  among  the  grass  at  our  feet,  we  can 
luxuriate  in  idleness,  listening  to  the  myriad  voices  of  the 
silence  :  to  the  soughing  of  the  wind  among  the  birches  and 
firs,  which  rise  out  of  their  beds  of  pine-needles,  or  of  "  the 
leaves  of  yesteryear,"  thick  as  those  in  Vallombrosa,  on  all 
sides  of  us ;  to  the  creaking  and  swaying  of  the  more 
slender  stems,  the  song  of  yellow-hammers  and  finches,  the 
chirping  of  grasshoppers,  the  hum  of  the  other  winged  in- 
sects. Perhaps,  if  we  are  very  still,  a  gentle  roe  comes 
cautiously  from  the  underwood  and  crosses  the  path  just 
above  us,  or  a  bright-eyed  red  squirrel  looks  down  at  us 
from  his  aerial  perch  among  the  branches ;  or  a  "  pale- 
throated  snake  " — for  even  this  Eden  has  them — glides 
quietly  up  to  us,  and  less  quietly,  but  rather  more  quickly, 
rustles  off  again.  Sometimes  the  scene  is  diversified  by 
human  interest,  as  when  a  sturdy  peasant,  with  his  long 


THURINGIA  101 

primitive  cart,  laden  with  freshly  felled  trees,  and  his  friendly 
"  Guten  Tag"  conies  by j  or  a  tourist,  botanical-box  and 
field-glass  on  back,  spectacles  on  nose  and  hat,  anywhere 
but  on  his  head,  beams  at  us  with  Teutonic  urbanity,  and 
" Heiterkeit"  and  pursues  his  cheerful  way.  To  these  fol- 
lows, perhaps  a  little  later,  a  procession  of  weary-looking 
women  bent  nearly  double  under  huge  bundles  of  firewood,  a 
sad  smile  crossing  their  thin,  patient  faces  in  laconic  assent  to 
our  suggestion  that  the  burden  is  a  heavy  one — the  revolt 
against  its  weight  being  all  on  our  side,  none  on  theirs. 
They  do  indeed  toil  terribly,  these  Thuringian  women — 
their  lives  for  the  most  part  seem  little  better  than  those  of 
beasts  of  burden  ;  and  it  is  pathetic  to  see  how  spiritless  and 
worn  quite  young  women  look,  and  how  soon  they  lose 
even  the  smallest  pretensions  to  youth  and  comeliness. 
The  district  about  Eisenach  is  an  especially  poor  one,  there 
being  but  little  to  be  got  out  of  forest  and  fell  to  supply 
even  the  very  moderate  wants  of  a  German  peasant  popu- 
lation ;  and  thin  coffee,  potatoes  and  black  bread,  which  are 
their  staple  articles  of  diet,  can  hardly  be  called  food  of  the 
most  nourishing  description. 

This  Thuringia  must  have  been  always  a  Spartan  sort  of 
mother,  if  one  may  judge  from  tradition  and  Saga.  Storms 
and  tempests,  floods  which  washed  away  whole  villages  and 
destroyed  countless  human  lives,  oppression  from  knights 
and  nobles,  endless  wars,  famine,  the  Black  Death,  and 
more  than  once  "  a  terrible  comet "  seem  to  have  plagued 
the  land  in  desolating  succession.  But  the  spirit  of  the 
Thuringian  folk  generally  sustained  them  ;  notably  when, 
upon  the  Pope  sending  ministers  of  the  Inquisition  to  root 
out  the  growing  heresy  from  among  them,  they  took  the 
law  into  their  own  hands,  and  falling  upon  the  Papal  min- 


102  GERMANY 

ions,  made  an  end  of  them  and  of  the  Inquisition,  so  far 
as  they  and  their  country  were  concerned,  at  the  same  time, 
in  which  summary  proceeding  we  perceive  a  touch  of  the 
"  heavenly  roughness  "  and  impatience  of  spiritual  despotism 
which  were  in  later  times  to  make  of  Thuringia  the  cradle 
of  the  Protestant  Reformation. 

Before  that  period,  however,  was  the  one  in  which  she 
earned  her  title  to  be  called  the  cradle  of  the  German  peo- 
ple's song,  to  touch  upon  which  we  must  go  back  to  Eisen- 
ach and  the  Wartburg. 

The  history  of  the  two  is  so  interwoven  that  it  is  difficult 
to  think  of  them  separately ;  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
town  is  of  much  earlier  origin  than  the  fortress,  and  dates 
from  remote  heathen  times,  receiving  its  ancient  name  of 
Isennaha  from  a  stalwart  smith  (Eisenschmied],  who  pursued 
his  calling  on  the  banks  of  the  never  frozen  Nesse;  or 
from  the  tool  (Eisenhammer)  which  he  wielded.  So  at  least 
says  tradition,  according  to  which  also  Etzel  or  Attila,  "  the 
Scourge  of  God,"  lived  for  some  years  in  the  neighbour- 
hood, ruling  the  fair-haired,  blue-eyed  "  Germanen "  with 
the  same  iron  grasp  which  already  held  all  the  territory 
lying  between  the  gates  of  Byzantium  and  the  "  amber  is- 
lands of  the  Midnight  Sea." 

After  his  time  fresh  hordes  of  Huns  fell  upon  Thuringia, 
and  though  the  people,  helped  by  the  Franks,  made  a  brave 
stand  against  them,  their  united  efforts  were  powerless  to 
prevent  the  entire  destruction  in  1602  of  the  little  town  of 
Eisenach  by  these  barbarians,  to  be  rebuilt  later  by  aFrank- 
ish  prince,  Ludwig,  surnamed  the  Bearded,  for  which  he 
was  rewarded  by  the  Kaiser  with  the  title  of  Count  of 
Thuringia. 

It  was  his  son  Ludwig  the  Salier,  or,  as  the  people  called 


THURINGIA  103 

him,  the  Springer,  who  conceived  the  idea  of  building  a 
strong  fortress  upon  one  of  the  hills  commanding  the  town. 
"  Wart  Berg)  du  soils t  mir  eine  Burg  Sein"  he  said  ;  hence 
the  Wartburg. 

Ludwig's  son,  also  Ludwig — for  princes  of  that  name 
were  as  numerous  in  Thuringia  as  in  France — was  the  first 
Landgrave ;  and  it  was  under  their  successor,  Hermann  I. 
that  the  celebrated  Singer-Contest  was  held  on  the  Wartburg, 
the  hospitality  of  which  this  art  and  splendour-loving  ruler 
threw  open  to  the  Minnesingers  of  his  time,  making 
Eisenach  the  home  of  the  early  German  Romantic,  the 
Weimar  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

The  period  of  Minnesang,  beginning  with  the  Austrian 
Kuremberger, — by  many  believed  to  have  composed,  or  at 
least  adapted  from  the  still  more  ancient  Edda,  the 
Niebelungen  Lied^ — reached  its  zenith  with  Walther  von 
der  Vogelweide  and  his  distinguished  contemporaries ;  after 
which  time  a  slow  and  gradual  decadence  is  to  be  observed. 
He  was  one  of  the  six  singers  who  met  at  the  great  Wart- 
burg contest,  to  compete  in  praise  of  Hermann  and  of 
his  son-in-law  Leopold  of  Austria,  then  also  a  guest  there. 
How  the  struggle  ultimately  became  one  for  life  and  death, 
and  how  Heinrich  von  Ofterdingen  (the  Tannhauser  of 
romance),  being  vanquished  by  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach, 
the  noble-minded  author  of  Parsifal^  threw  himself  at  the 
feet  of  Sophie  of  Austria,  Hermann's  spouse,  beseeching 
her  to  allow  the  decision  to  be  referred  to  the  great  Hunga- 
rian poet  and  magician  Klingsor,  is  all  depicted  in  fresco  by 
Moritz  Schwind  upon  the  wall  of  the  room  in  which  it  took 
place. 

From  the  beautiful  mullioned  window  of  this  same 
Sanger-Saal,  with  its  arched  dais  at  the  end,  upon  which  the 


104  GERMANY 

singers  sat,  is  a  good  view  of  the  Horselberg  or  Venusberg. 
as  the  Minnesingers  called  it,  in  which,  according  to  the 
legend,  the  noble  Knight  Tannhauser  was  held  in  durance 
vile  by  the  goddess,  the  old  Germanic  Holda,  who,  banished 
from  the  Walhalla  on  the  triumph  of  Christianity,  found 
refuge  here,  and  developed  into  the  Venus  of  a  latter  period. 

As  in  duty  bound,  we  made  a  pilgrimage  to  the  Venus-or 
Horselberg  ;  but  our  sense  of  the  romantic  received  a  slight 
shock  when  we  found  that  this  whilom  mysterious  haunt  of 
Frau  Venus,  or  Frau  Holle  as  the  country-folk  called  her, 
was  only  an  ordinary  bare  breezy  hill ;  that  the  little  tower 
on  the  summit  was  no  mediaeval  ruin,  but  a  brand-new 
restaurant ;  and  worst  bathos  of  all !  the  dreaded  hole  which 
the  superstitious  for  centuries  believed  to  be  the  entrance  to 
purgatory,  a  mere  cleft  in  the  rock,  utilized  at  that  particu- 
lar moment  for  the  cooling  of  sundry  bottles  of  German 
beer  !  Then  at  least  we  realized,  if  never  before,  that  great 
Pan  was  indeed  dead,  and  that  even  a  Richard  Wagner 
could  only  galvanize  him  into  a  semblance  of  vitality. 

On  the  same  day  on  which  the  Singer-Contest  was  held, 
was  born  the  patron  saint  of  Thuringia,  the  holy  Elizabeth 
of  Hungary ;  and  it  was  at  the  suggestion  of  the  Klingsor 
of  whom  we  have  made  mention,  that  the  little  four  years' 
old  maiden  was  brought  from  "far  Hungarian  land  "  to  be 
the  bride  of  Hermann's  son  Ludwig,  seven  years  her  senior. 
Their  marriage  took  place  in  1221,  and  the  attendant 
festivities  in  the  Wartburg  plunged  the  royal  exchequer  into 
difficulties,  which  Elizabeth's  1,000  marks  did  not  go  far 
to  relieve.  But  what  was  money  compared  with  the  count- 
less blessings  which  this  angel  of  goodness  brought  down 
into  the  land  of  her  adoption  ? 

When  envious  evil-wishers  accused  her  to  her  husband  of 


THURINGIA  105 

extravagance,  Ludwig's  answer  was  :  "  Let  my  Elizabeth 
do  what  she  will ;  so  long  as  Eisenach  and  the  Wartburg 
remain  to  me,  I  have  enough."  At  last,  however,  when 
her  unbounded  charity  had  begun  seriously  to  cripple  his 
finances,  he  was  obliged  to  modify  the  carte-blanche  he  had 
granted  her ;  and  the  legend  is  well  known,  describing  her 
carrying  a  basket  of  bread  for  some  hungry  ones  in  the 
Marientbal — the  spot  is  called  Armenruhe,  or  Rest  of  the 
Poor,  to  this  day — and  being  met  by  her  husband,  who,  with 
unusual  abruptness,  asked  :  "  What  hast  thou  under  thy 
cloak  ?  "  Tremblingly  she  answered  :  "  I  am  taking  roses 
into  the  town."  And  the  pious  deception  was  justified  by 
a  miracle,  for  as  Ludwig  lifted  her  cloak,  instead  of  loaves 
a  mass  of  the  sweet  flowers  was  disclosed  to  his  enchanted 
gaze  ;  whereupon  he,  thinking  he  discerned  a  golden  cruci- 
fix upon  the  head  of  his  wife,  clasped  her  rapturously  in  his 
arms.  The  wedded  happiness  of  this  ideal  pair  was  not  of 
long  duration  :  in  seven  years  from  their  marriage,  Lud- 
wig obeyed  the  summons  which  was  then  calling  all  pious 
princes  to  the  Holy  Land,  and  soon  fell  a  victim  to  one  of 
the  fevers  which  in  the  Crusades  counted  a  greater  number 
of  victims  than  the  sword  of  the  infidel  itself. 

The  conclusion  is  a  sad  one.  Hunted  from  the  Wart- 
burg  by  her  brother-in-law,  who  usurped  the  Landgravate 
to  the  exclusion  of  her  little  sons,  Elizabeth  passed  through 
much  suffering  and  privation,  taking  refuge  finally  in  a 
little  cell  at  Marpurg,  where  she  earned  a  scanty  livelihood 
by  spinning,  and  died,  prematurely  worn  out  by  hardships 
and  austerities,  at  the  early  age  of  twenty-four, — to  be 
canonized  with  great  ceremony  a  year  after  her  decease. 

It  is  a  long  step  from  her  time  to  that  in  which  a  boy  of 
fifteen  years  of  age,  Martin  Luther  by  name,  might  have 


io6  GERMANY 

been  seen  daily  wending  his  way  to  the  school  in  Eisenach, 
in  which  under  the  learned  rector,  Johannes  Trebonnius, 
he  built  up  the  groundwork  of  the  strong,  enlightened  in- 
tellect which  was  suddenly  to  flash  upon  an  awakened 
Europe,  kindling  a  steady  flame  for  generations  to  come. 
Not  one  of  the  least  picturesque  bits  of  the  town  is  the  old 
wattled  house,  very  much  out  of  the  perpendicular,  with  its 
bulging  walls  and  overhanging  quaintly  buttressed  upper 
story,  from  one  of  the  windows  of  which,  rather  less  than 
four  hundred  years  ago,  Frau  Ursula  Cotta  saw  this  same 
Martin  Luther  stand,  wallet  on  back,  in  the  course  of  his 
daily  wandering  quest  of  the  cast-off  food  grudgingly  be- 
stowed upon  him  by  the  more  well-to-do  burghers ;  and, 
attracted  by  the  beauty  of  his  singing  voice  and  by  some- 
thing more  than  commonly  interesting  in  himself,  adopted 
him  into  her  home,  and  smoothed  the  early  steps  of  life  for 
him. 

Of  still  greater  interest  is  the  Luther  Room  in  the 
Wartburg,  at  the  back  of  the  Ritterhaus,  upon  which,  after 
going  through  the  Armoury  with  its  tattered  banners  of  the 
Thirty  Years'  War,  and  weapons  and  suits  of  mail  of  many 
a  dead  and  gone  Thuringian  prince,  we  come,  as  upon  a 
quiet  andante  after  a  restless,  turbulent  presto.  After  his 
bold  declaration  at  Worms  had  placed  his  life  in  jeopardy, 
the  Reformer  was  brought  by  order  of  his  staunch  friend 
and  protector  Frederick  the  Wise,  a  nominal  prisoner  to 
this  little  room,  his  "  Patmos,"  as  he  calls  it,  "  his  hermitage, 
his  windy  manor,  on  the  hill  above  Eisenach,  among  the 
birds  who  sweetly  praise  God  day  and  night."  Portraits  of 
himself,  his  parents  and  princely  patron  hang  from  the 
mouldering  plaster  upon  the  worm-eaten  time-bleached 
panels,  with  specimens  of  his  handwriting  and  the  cuirass 


THURINGIA  107 

he  wore  as  Junker  Gorg,  and  from  the  little  round  windows 
he  must  often  have  looked  out  upon  the  Thuringian  Forest 
with  the  birds,  longing  for  which  found  expression  in  one  of 
his  letters,  in  which  he  said  he  "  would  rather  be  burned 
upon  glowing  coals,  than  half-alive  and  half-dead  in  idle 
loneliness  there." 

As  we  look  at  the  old  red-roofed  towerless  church  of  St. 
George  in  the  Eisenach  Market-place,  with  its  tiers  of  gal- 
leries, and  quaint  paintings  of  the  Augsburg  Confession  and 
of  the  first  Protestant  celebration  of  the  Eucharist,  we  won- 
der whether  in  the  peregrinations  allowed  to  him  during  the 
latter  part  of  his  friendly  imprisonment  Luther  often  bent 
his  steps  in  its  direction,  and  whether  the  odd  little  gilded 
statue  of  the  hero-saint,  his  foot  upon  the  dragon's  head, 
over  the  fountain  hard  by,  suggested  an  analogy  with  his 
own  sharp  combat  and  cheered  him  as  to  its  outcome. 
The  space  between  it  and  the  little  so-called  Schloss,  with 
its  solitary  sentinel,  and  the  Ratbaus  at  right  angles,  is  on 
market-days  filled  with  a  lively  crowd  of  buyers  and  sellers 
from  the  country  round.  Goods  of  all  kinds,  perishable 
and  otherwise,  are  here  displayed ;  stalls  with  bright-col- 
oured handkerchiefs  and  stuffs,  gaudy  bead-necklaces, 
combs,  braces,  and  what  not,  in  delightful  confusion, — with 
hay  sold  by  the  bundle ;  vegetables,  butter,  eggs,  and  the 
unappetizing-looking  little  brownish-yellow  cheeses,  so 
much  appreciated  by  the  educated — or  uneducated — taste. 
But  the  pleasantest,  coolest  "bit"  is  that  just  under  the 
church  and  round  the  fountain,  the  Unter  den  Linden  of 
Eisenach,  especially  charming  now  in  these  July  days, 
when  the  limes  are  in  blossom,  and  exhaling  their  (one  of 
the  sweetest  of  all)  sweet  odours.  Here  the  Thuringian 
peasant  women  sit  in  their  turban-like  head-gear,  the  one 


io8  GERMANY 

relic  of  their  former  picturesque  costume ;  and  here  is  the 
best  fruit  to  be  had,  notably  the  little  wood-strawberries, 
whose  exquisite  flavour  is  thought  by  some  epicures  to  far 
surpass  that  of  their  garden  relative.  Cherries,  white, 
crimson  and  black,  are  everywhere  in  evidence,  enough  to 
supply  a  thirsty  army  corps,  and  after  observing  the 
Thuringian  penchant  for  and  consumption  of  them,  we 
can  no  longer  wonder  that  the  only  remark  which  Schubert 
was  able  to  evolve  in  his  exceeding  nervousness  upon  being 
admitted  to  the  presence  of  the  great  Goethe  was  a  propos 
of  the  number  of  cherry  trees  on  the  road  to  Weimar. 

Behind  the  church  is  a  space  devoted  to  the  display  of 
native  pottery  of  various  hues,  glazed  and  unglazed,  some- 
times quaint,  but  seldom  artistic ;  and  near  it  a  row  of  old 
fashioned  covered  carts,  emporiums  for  potatoes  and  the 
loaves  of  shining  black  bread.  Here  the  housekeepers 
skirt  about,  filling  up  the  lower  strata  of  the  pyramid- 
shaped  baskets  made  of  willow  withes,  which  they  carry 
strapped  on  their  shoulders,  and  which  ultimately  contain  a 
melange  of  articles,  which  only  the  skill  born  of  long  prac- 
tice could  bring  into  any  kind  of  harmonious  arrangement. 
To  whom  come  those  "  matres  conscripti "  of  Eisenach, 
whose  purchases  have  been  made  betimes,  for  a  little  cheer- 
ful gossip,  wrapped  in  the  wide-filled,  bright  cotton  mantles, 
which  we  have  seen  nowhere  out  of  Thuringia,  with  a  kind 
of  sling  in  front  for  the  more  easy  carrying  of  their  off- 
spring ;  and  one  of  which,  when  worn  by  a  young  and 
comely  woman,  with  her  fair,  plait-crowned  head  bending 
Madonna-wise  over  her  infant,  has  a  rather  picturesque 
effect. 

Looking  down  at  the  scene  under  a  solitary,  wide- 
branched  linden  by  the  eastern  side  of  the  church,  is  the 


THURINGIA  109 

bronze  statue  of  the  greatest  of  all  the  tone-poets,  Sebastian 
Bach,  here  in  Eisenach  born,  and  whose  little  unpretending 
house  is  to  be  seen,  not  far  from  Frau  Cotta's,  in  a  steep 
"  murderously-fanged  "  street  yclept  the  Frauenplan. 


BAVARIA 

GERTRUDE  NORM4N 

THE  most  dominant  characteristic  which  impresses 
itself  on  the  traveller  in  Bavaria,  is  the  intense 
spirit  of  devotion  which  immediately  manifests  it- 
self as  one  leaves  Prussia,  Baden  and  Wurtemberg  and 
draws  within  her  borders.  A  perceptible  change  becomes 
apparent  in  the  atmosphere.  Out  of  the  landscape,  the 
first  thing  which  rises  up  to  greet  one,  as  one  approaches 
village  or  town,  is  the  spire  of  some  church  or  cathedral. 
The  houses  always  nestle  round  the  protecting  walls  of 
some  ancient,  monastic  retreat.  In  the  fields,  as  one  speeds 
past  them,  rise  up  white  stone  crosses,  slender  ones  of 
wood,  and  little  shrines  for  prayer.  Stations  of  the  Cross 
climb  up  the  hills  to  church  or  chapel.  The  spirit  of  re- 
ligion seems  the  very  breath  of  life,  not  merely  an  adjunct 
for  certain  days.  At  sunset  or  sunrise  in  the  verdant,  quiet 
and  sweetly  smelling  fields,  the  labourer  stops  to  rest  and 
pray  in  the  miniature  chapel.  The  Saints'  Days  are  full  of 
processions,  and  all  the  houses  are  adorned  with  niches  over 
the  door  lintels  to  hold  some  figure  of  Saint  or  Madonna. 

In  the  eating-rooms  of  country  inns  and  taverns  hang 
large  crucifixes  or  religious  pictures.  Day  and  night,  over 
the  old  town  gates,  lamps  before  the  Virgin  are  ever  burning. 
The  churches  are  munificently  kept  up,  and  in  the  smallest 
towns  we  find  a  magnificent  old  pile,  rising  up  above  the 
little  brown-roofed  cottages.  The  swallows  fly  in  and  out, 
building  their  nests  in  the  heads  of  some  little  rococo  angel, 


BAVARIA  111 

or  in  the  mitre  of  some  Bishop  or  Saint.  On  All  Soul's 
Day  the  cemeteries  are  crowded,  in  villages,  towns  and 
cities,  with  the  families  of  the  departed,  who  spend  all  day 
by  the  graves,  decorating  them  with  wreaths  and  flowers, 
and  at  night  illuminating  them  with  lanterns  and  candles. 
In  the  small  villages  the  early  morning  air  is  filled  with  a 
monotonous  chant  of  mingled  voices  ;  old  men  and  maidens, 
young  men  and  women,  walking  two  by  two,  with  bent 
head  and  clasped  hands,  in  lengthy  procession,  a  robed 
priest  leading,  with  little  lace-and-scarlet-clad  choir  boys, 
the  Cross  held  aloft,  bent  on  some  mission  of  prayer  to  a 
distant  shrine,  for  the  succour  of  some  soul,  or  some 
martyred  Saint. 

The  initiation  services  of  young  priests  are  fraught  with 
many  ancient  customs  and  symbolical  rights,  such  as  the 
marrying  of  a  little  maiden  to  the  young  priest,  at  his  hold- 
ing of  the  First  Communion  and  departure  from  the  world. 
For  eternity  she  is  to  be  his  spiritual  bride,  he  her  protector, 
by  prayer  and  seclusion,  for  life.  The  Bavarians  are  very 
conservative,  clinging  to  old  ways,  customs  and  dress.  In 
some  districts,  the  costumes  are  intensely  picturesque ;  the 
broad  brimmed  hat,  high  leather  boots  and  silver  buttons 
everywhere  to  be  seen,  or  the  charming  grey  and  green  cos- 
tume of  the  mountain  districts.  That  simplicity  is  inherent 
in  the  Bavarian  folk  is  very  evident  in  their  unsophisticated 
acceptance  of  old  myths  and  legends  to  this  day  as 
truisms.  For  instance,  on  Walpurgis  Night,  there  is  still 
to  be  observed  in  certain  parts  of  the  more  remote  districts, 
the  custom  of  driving  out  witches  or  evil  spirits.  The 
young  fellows  of  the  village  assemble  after  sunset  on  some 
height,  especially  at  a  crossroad,  and  crack  whips  with  all 
their  strength  for  a  while  in  unison.  This,  so  they  firmly 


112  GERMANY 

believe,  drives  away  the  witches ;  for  so  far  as  the  sound  of 
the  whip  is  heard,  these  maleficent  beings  can  do  no 
harm. 

In  some  places,  while  the  young  fellows  are  cracking 
their  whips,  the  herdsmen  wind  their  horns,  and  these  long 
drawn  notes,  heard  far  off,  vibrating  through  the  silence 
of  the  night,  are  believed  to  be  very  effectual  for  banish- 
ing the  evil  spirits.  In  temperament,  the  Bavarians  re- 
semble more  the  Austrians,  being  more  open  hearted  and 
buoyant  of  nature  than  their  more  Northern  brothers. 
They  are  spontaneous,  cheerful,  effervescent,  and  intensely 
artistic  loving,  yet  inclined  to  be  credulous  and  superstitious, 
and  the  lower  classes  are  comparatively  ruled  in  both  ec- 
clesiastical and  political  views  by  their  superiors.  Of  course, 
to  this  there  are  exceptions,  and  all  over  the  country,  social- 
ists and  independent  thinkers  are  to  be  met  with.  Among 
the  cultivated  classes,  a  very  marked  independence  of  both 
thought  and  action  has  latterly  manifested  itself.  The  low 
German  or  Bavarian  has  a  very  noticeable  dialect,  which  in 
mediaeval  days,  was  called  Platt  Deutsch  (that  is,  flat 
Dutch),  the  Highland  German  being  called  Hoch  Deutsch 
(or  High  Dutch).  The  inhabitants  of  Holland  are  called 
Dutch,  but  they  belong  to  the  Low-German  races,  and  have 
no  exclusive  right  to  the  title.  Luther,  being  born  in  upper 
Germany,  and  having  translated  the  Bible  into  High  Ger- 
man, is  probably  the  reason  why  "  Hoch  Deutsch  "  is  alone 
recognized  as  the  literary  and  aristocratic  language  of  the 
country. 

"  The  present  form  of  government  is  founded  partly  on 
long  established  usage  and  partly  on  a  constitutional  act 
passed  May,  1818,  and  modified  by  subsequent  acts,  espe- 
cially one  passed  in  1848  after  abdication  of  Ludwig  I. 


BAVARIA  113 

The  monarchy  is  hereditary  and  the  executive  power  vested 
in  the  King,  whose  person  is  considered  inviolable.  The 
responsibility  resting,  as  it  does  in  England,  with  the 
ministers.  The  Upper  Parliament,  the  Chamber  of  the 
Reichsrath,  comprises  the  Princes  of  the  Royal  blood,  two 
Archbishops,  the  Barons  or  heads  of  certain  noble  families 
and  a  Protestant  and  Catholic  clergyman." 

The  history  of  the  mysterious  cities  of  Southern  Ger- 
many hangs  around  them  with  a  melancholy  severity,  oc- 
casionally serene,  always  earnest,  but  seldom  with  that 
colourful  radiance  of  hope,  which  one  so  promptly  feels  on 
crossing  the  borderland  into  the  warmth  of  Italy.  It  is 
typically  the  land  of  Durer,  of  Cornelius,  Hans  Sachs  and 
Wagner.  And  yet  it  is  immensely  progressive  and  full  of 
an  enthralling  magnetic  charm.  In  Munich,  however,  all 
the  above  is  changed.  The  air  there  glistens  and  shimmers 
as  nowhere  else  in  Bavaria.  It  has  little  of  that  staid 
formalism,  that  rigid  mediaevalism  of  the  other  cities.  It 
were  impossible  to  follow  individually  the  history  of  the 
many  Free  Imperial  cities  which  are  now  joined  to  Bavaria, 
or  the  stories  of  all  her  towns,  castles,  palaces,  monasteries, 
lakes  and  villages.  The  civilization  of  these  cities  and 
their  art,  reaches  back  to  a  very  distant  period,  as  we  have 
seen.  The  Thirty  Years'  War  and  the  discovery  of  the 
passage  around  the  Cape  being  the  two  chief  causes  for 
their  downfall.  But  the  monasteries  mostly  managed  to 
maintain  their  princely  wealth  and  celebrity  up  to  the  Nine- 
teenth Century.  Although  the  Carolingian  period  saw  the 
beginning  of  Ratisbon's  importance,  little  that  is  of  other 
import  from  that  time  has  descended  to  Bavaria,  excepting 
some  fine  specimens  of  the  goldsmith's  art  and  miniature 
painting.  About  the  Tenth  Century  an  unbroken  chain  of 


ii4  GERMANY 

activity  began  to  manifest  itself  in  a  number  of  important 
towns.  From  the  Tenth  to  the  Thirteenth  Centuries  the  art 
style  most  prevalent  was  the  Romanesque,  revealing  itself 
in  innumerable  ecclesiastical  buildings.  It  had  been  sug- 
gested by  the  Roman  Basilica  and  attained  its  artistic  height 
in  Bavaria  in  the  Twelfth  Century. 

Ratisbon  is  aglow  with  buildings  of  this  style,  the  most 
remarkable  being  the  cathedral,  the  Ober  Munster,  the 
Schottenkirche  and  St.  Emmeraus.  But  the  most  perfect 
example  of  the  Romanesque  architecture  is  to  be  found  in 
one  of  the  most  ancient  cities  of  Germany,  Bamberg ! 
This  cathedral  was  founded  by  Henry  II.  in  the  year  1004 
who  also  built  the  Bishopric  of  Bamberg.  He  and  his  wife 
St.  Kunigunde,  are  buried  in  the  former.  The  Romanesque 
period  of  architecture  was  followed  victoriously  in  Bavaria 
by  the  Gothic.  The  Frauenkirche  in  Munich,  the  church 
at  Landshut  and  the  churches  of  Nuremberg,  being  very 
perfect  examples.  During  this  Gothic  period  sculpture  and 
painting  began  in  Bavarian  cities  to  achieve  their  world- 
wide distinction.  Tombstones  in  stone,  altars  in  carved 
wood,  fonts  in  metal,  were  the  most  followed  branches  of 
art.  Wood  carving  was  religiously  carried  on  everywhere, 
in  all  the  mountain  districts,  as  well  as  in  the  towns  and 
cities,  the  chief  works  being  altars,  choir-stalls  and  cruci- 
fixes. The  carvings  on  the  altars  were  usually  painted, 
and  most  perfect  specimens  of  the  latter  can  be  seen  in  the 
Museums  at  Munich  and  Nuremberg. 

Later  the  towns  became  transformed  under  another  influ- 
ence, that  of  the  German  "  Renaissance."  It  breathed  its 
influence  into  every  branch  of  art.  St.  Michael's  Kirche 
in  Munich,  and  the  Castle  and  New  Palace  of  Landshut 
showing  very  clearly  the  new  tendency.  As  the  riches  and 


BAVARIA  115 

power  of  the  Bavarian  Dukes  increased,  their  palaces  grad- 
ually became  transformed  into  homes  of  splendid  magnifi- 
cence. In  almost  every  town  and  parish  can  be  seen  the 
vast  sweep  of  this  new  influence,  but  Nuremburg  and 
Rothenburg  unquestionably  stand  at  the  head  of  all  Ger- 
man Renaissance  towns.  The  former,  despite  its  wide 
fame,  perhaps  less  than  the  latter,  for  the  invasions  of  mod- 
ern thought  and  a  devastating  practicality  have  laid  their 
disturbing  touch  on  the  ancient  atmosphere.  Rothenburg 
is  probably  the  purest  existing  type  of  unadulterated  Ger- 
man Renaissance  beauty,  revealing  the  consistent  aim  at 
inner  harmony  with  exterior  beauty.  The  goldsmith's 
work,  the  wood  carving  inlaid  with  ivory,  the  metal  panel- 
ling, brass  utensils,  coarse  pottery,  finely  coloured,  and 
much  plastic  ornament,  leading  one  outwardly  as  it  were  to 
the  shell,  the  complete  architecture  of  the  enclosing  form. 
In  the  Seventeenth  Century  the  Italian  style  crept  in  to  in- 
fluence all  the  arts  and  we  can  see  its  mark  in  the  facades 
of  the  Nuremburg  Rathaus,  and  in  the  "  Goldene  Saal "  of 
the  Augsburg  Rathaus.  Italian  ideas  were  very  dominant 
in  the  latter  city,  as  she  was  in  such  vital  and  continuous 
intercourse  with  that  country.  The  next  art  influence  to 
manifest  itself  was  the  Baroque. 

Bavaria  is  very  rich  in  beautiful  lakes,  the  most  important 
being  Starnberg  Lake,  Lake  Constance,  forty  miles  in  length, 
and  curious,  apart  from  its  immense  beauty,  in  that  its  banks 
belong  to  five  different  states,  Bavaria,  Wurtemberg,  Baden, 
Switzerland,  and  Austria.  Lindau,  the  little  island  on  the 
waters  of  the  lake,  belongs  to  Bavaria.  Tegernsee,  Her- 
renchiemsee,  which  has  three  islands  (the  Herren-Insel  on 
which  formerly  stood  a  monastery,  and  on  whose  site  Lud- 
wig  II.  erected  his  castle,  the  Kraut-Insel  which  used  to  be 


u6  GERMANY 

a  vegetable  garden  for  the  monks  and  nuns,  and  the  Frauen- 
Insel  on  which  still  stands  a  convent). 

The  most  beautiful  lake  in  Germany  is  the  Bavarian 
Konigsee,  a  small  emerald  lake  through  whose  delicate  green 
waters  shine  the  rarest  tints  of  sapphire-blue.  The  brittle- 
looking  mighty  mountains  pierce  upwards  from  the  very 
water's  edge  to  a  distance  of  6,500  feet,  in  a  perpendicular 
glory,  leaping  heavenwards  like  ardent,  aspiring  prayers.  In 
this  soul  exalting  spot  we  will  take  leave  of  this  marvellous 
and  beautiful  little  country,  for  which  one  lifetime  is  all  too 
short  wherein  to  comprehend  fully  its  charms,  influence,  in- 
estimable treasures,  and  the  picture  of  a  wonderful  mental, 
spiritual  and  artistic  progression. 

To  know  her,  nevertheless  how  imperfectly,  is  to  lose 
her.  Through  all  her  evolutions,  wars,  battles  of  belief  and 
unbelief,  times  so  terrible  that  we  swiftly  endeavour 
to  wrap  a  heavy  veil  of  unprejudiced  leniency  over 
the  eyes,  we  have  seen  that  at  bottom  a  great  Justice 
ruled  her,  a  beautiful  Destiny  awaited  her.  And  if 
we  have  seen  that  the  path  of  her  noblest  and  most  artistic 
souls  has  been  one  of  martyrdom,  they  individually  seldom 
seeing  the  fruit  or  result  of  their  profound  endeavours,  let 
us  remember  that  "  to  take  from  art  its  martyrdom  is  to 
take  from  it  its  glory.  It  might  still  reflect  the  passing 
modes  of  mankind,  but  it  would  cease  to  reflect  the  face  of 
God." 


MUNICH 

GERTRUDE  NORMAN 

THE  city  which  is  of  the  greatest  import  to  Bavaria 
now  undoubtedly  is  Munich.  Since  the  splendid 
energies  of  Ludwig  I.  and  the  enormous  art  in- 
spiration spread  through  Cornelius,  Kaulbach  and  their  fol- 
lowers, she  has  ranked  among  the  foremost  of  European  art 
centres. 

Not  before  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Lion  does  she  come 
into  prominence. 

We  first  read  of  her  as  "  Dorf  Munchen,"  where  some 
storehouses  stood,  built  by  monks  for  the  reception  of  salt 
which  was  brought  from  the  mines  of  Reichenhalle  and 
Salzburg.  These  monks  belong  to  the  Schaftlarn  or  Teg- 
ernsee  monastery,  where  they  possessed  a  small  farm  or 
produce  dairy  which  was  called  "  Munchen."  The  word 
comes  from  the  Latin  Forum  "  ad  monachos  "  or  Muniha, 
and  the  present  title  of  Munich,  or  Munchen,  comes  from 
these  same  monkish  pioneers.  Henry  the  Lion  built  a 
wooden  bridge  over  the  Isar,  founded  a  customs  house  and 
mint  and  started  also  a  market,  but  it  did  not  become  the 
residence  of  the  Bavarian  Dukes  until  1255,  when  Otto  the 
Illustrious  transferred  his  residence  there,  and  his  son  Lud- 
wig the  Severe  built  the  Old  Palace  or  Alte  Veste.  The 
latter  it  was  who  started  the  first  brewery,  drawing  up  him- 
self the  regulations  for  the  brewers. 

Under  these  Wittlesbach  princes  the  town  began  to  pros- 


ii8  GERMANY 

per.  After  a  terrible  fire  in  1327  Ludwig  the  Bavarian, 
who  was  born  in  the  Alte  Veste,  almost  entirely  rebuilt  the 
city.  He  was  deeply  attached  to  his  Bavarian  capital  and 
the  people  worshipped  him.  His  tomb  is  in  the  Frauen- 
kirche.  Between  1550  and  1573  Duke  Albrecht  V. 
founded  the  library,  the  Kunst  Kammer  and  the  first  col- 
lection for  the  National  Museum. 

Elector  Maximilian  I.  erected  the  Arsenal,  the  Alte  Res- 
idenz  and  the  Marien-Saule.  Munich  suffered  a  severe  re- 
tardation in  1631  when  Gustavus  Adolphus  made  it  his 
head-quarters  on  his  devastating  journey  through  Bavaria. 
But  like  all  other  cities  she  slowly  resuscitated  herself  after 
the  Thirty  Years'  War,  and  under  the  rule  of  Ferdinand 
Maria  began  the  building  of  the  Rococo  works  of  architec- 
ture, in  churches,  palaces  and  houses.  Munich  contains 
two  distinct  atmospheres;  the  older  part  of  the  city  still 
possessing  an  aroma  of  ancient  days.  The  city  was  orig- 
inally surrounded  by  a  wall  and  ditch  (but  these  were  filled 
up  in  1 791)  and  one  entered  her  precincts  by  castellated 
gates,  many  of  which  are  still  standing.  The  beautiful  old 
Sendlinger-Thor  dates  from  the  Fourteenth  Century. 
The  Isar-Thor  and  the  Carls-Thor  were  built  about  1315. 
The  oldest  parish  church  in  Munich  is  St.  Peter's;  orig- 
inally it  was  a  small  Romanesque  building,  but  was  en- 
larged in  the  Gothic  style  1327.  The  Marien-Platz,  al- 
though even  there  numerous  new  buildings  have  sprung  up, 
is  still  suggestive  of  the  mediaeval  life  of  the  city;  the 
houses  being  built  in  the  same  quaint,  attractive  way,  which 
appeals  so  to  one  in  Nuremberg  and  Augsberg.  Still  can 
we  see  buildings,  irregular  both  in  size  and  form,  oriel  win- 
dows high  up  on  some  corner,  high  sloping  roofs,  punctured 
with  scores  of  little  windows  in  tiers.  The  fronts  of  these 


MUNICH  119 

houses  are  often  covered  with  frescoes,  scroll-work  or 
stucco  patterns.  The  great  market-place  with  its  Column 
of  the  Virgin,  erected  by  Elector  Maximilian  in  commem- 
oration of  his  victory  over  Frederic  of  Austria  and  the  end 
of  the  Plague,  the  old  clock  tower  and  Rathaus,  first  built 
in  1315,  all  fill  the  eye  with  a  picture  of  ancient  beauty. 
In  1715  Max  Josef  III.  founded  the  Academy,  but  it  was 
Maximilian  I.,  who  began  to  add  most  to  the  improvement 
of  modern  Munich.  He  dissolved  a  number  of  superfluous 
religious  houses  and  erected  new  buildings.  But  all  its 
modern  magnificence  dates  from  the  accession  of  Lud- 
wig  I. 

Munich,  like  any  other  city,  can  only  be  absorbed  by  a 
visit  with  some  reliable  guide  book.  One  notices  on  the 
pavements,  as  signs  over  inns,  or  as  advertisement  or  crest, 
the  Munchener  Kindel.  It  immediately  attracts  one's  curi- 
osity. The  legend  has  passed  through  innumerable  phases 
and  changes.  One  story  runs  that  our  Saviour  came  down 
to  bless  the  town  and  the  furtherance  of  the  good  works  of 
the  monks,  in  the  guise  of  a  little  child,  robed  in  a  monk's 
garment  and  hood.  It  probably  was  originally  the  seal  of 
the  monks,  and  through  the  centuries,  under  the  hands  of 
various  artists,  who  carved,  painted  and  chiselled  the  little 
figure,  endeavouring  to  beautify  it,  it  gradually  became 
transformed  to  its  present  childlike  aspect.  The  greatest 
contributors  to  the  splendours  of  modern  Munich  in  carry- 
ing out  the  ambitions  of  Ludwig  I.  were  Schwanthaler, 
Klenze  and  Gartner.  They  are  all  buried  in  the  Southern 
cemetery  which  is  considered  the  finest  and  most  artistic  in 
Germany.  Frauenhofer,  the  astronomer,  Senefelder,  the 
inventor  of  lithography,  Neumann,  the  historian,  and  Franz 
von  Hess  the  painter  were  also  buried  here. 


120  GERMANY 

For  the  artist,  the  student,  the  seeker  for  rest,  Munich 
will  make  a  very  definite  appeal.  Her  broad  streets,  foun- 
tains, statues,  deep  wooded  park,  quaint  customs,  picture 
galleries  (containing  almost  the  finest  collection  of  old 
masters  in  the  world),  her  galleries  of  sculpture,  academies 
for  the  study  of  every  branch  of  literature,  science,  or  art, 
her  beautiful  little  Residenz-Theatre  and  magnificent  Opera 
House,  her  concert  halls,  the  great  artists  who  flock  to  her 
centre  every  year,  her  standard  in  productions  and  plays,  all 
seem  to  round  out  a  life  of  complete  artistic  enjoyment. 
It  is  a  city  both  to  absorb,  study  and  create  in.  Here 
Kaulbach  the  elder  lived  and  worked ;  here  now  in  his 
artistic  home  lives  and  works  his  famous  son.  Lenbach's 
exquisite  home,  so  alive  still  with  that  great  and  suggestive 
personality,  the  classical,  remarkable  home  of  Stuck,  and 
on  the  hill  above  the  river,  the  inspiringly  poised  Peace 
Monument,  the  wonderful  Prinz-Regenten  theatre  for  the 
production  of  Wagner's  operas  and  classical  dramas  alone, 
all  greet  us  with  inspiring  hopes. 

Next  to  some  of  the  galleries  in  Italy,  the  old  and  new 
Pinakotheks  contain  some  of  the  finest  pictures  in  the 
world.  Next  to  Vienna  and  Antwerp  the  former  possesses 
the  most  exceptional  collection  of  Rubens.  Durer  (the 
greatest  painter  Germany  has  ever  given  birth  to),  Rem- 
brandt, Van  Dyck,  Ruysdael,  Van  der  Meer,  Schongauer, 
Holbein  and  many  master-pieces  of  the  Flemish,  early 
Cologne  and  Italian  masters,  all  being  excellently  represented. 
In  the  new  Pinakothek  is  an  entrancing  array  of  the  works 
of  Overbeck,  Hess,  Markart,  Max,  Piloty,  Kaulbach, 
(father  and  son),  Defregger,  Stuck,  Lenbach,  Bocklin,  Rott- 
mann,  Piglheim,  etc. 

Two  very  noticeable  pictures  of  the  later  modern  school 


MUNICH  121 

are  Stuck's  "  War,"  and  "  Die  Sunde."  But  the  gems 
almost  of  all  picture  collections  in  Munich  is  that  contained 
in  the  little  Schack  Gallery.  One  leaves  Munich  rich  with 
memories,  but  perhaps  the  most  treasured  remembrance  of 
all  is  that  of  the  New  National  Museum  on  the  Prinz- 
Regenten  Strasse. 

No  better  evocative  lesson  for  the  resuscitating  and  ab- 
sorbing of  the  arresting  changes,  through  which  this  one 
small  kingdom  has  passed,  can  be  obtained  than  by  a  visit 
to  this  most  wonderful  of  all  European  Museums.  Each 
room  is  built  so  as  to  harmonize  with  the  period  of  its  con- 
tents. This  alone  was  a  labour  of  infinite  art  and  all-em- 
bracing knowledge.  The  exterior  is  of  the  German  Re- 
naissance style;  within,  all  the  objects  are  arranged  in 
chronological  order  (as  in  the  Glyptothek)  from  far  prehis- 
toric times,  down  through  all  the  passing  centuries,  and 
bearing  all  through  a  special  reference  to  Bavaria.  To 
dwell  in  each  room  for  a  while  is  to  be  impregnated  with 
the  past  atmosphere  and  personality  of  barbaric,  pagan,  and 
mediaeval  times.  A  very  aroma  seems  to  cling  to  the 
furniture  and  to  emanate  from  the  walls,  hangings,  relics 
and  pictures;  wordless  oracles  from  the  graceful  mystic 
urns,  which  hide  what  secret  of  death  or  fragrance  of  life  ? 
The  silent  standing  armoured  figures  are  stern  and  ominous 
with  blood  and  wars;  the  Roman  floors  are  polished  with 
the  passing  of  countless  sandalled  feet,  now  long  ages  at 
rest ;  the  ancient  altar  receives  no  more  ardent  pagan  prayer, 
no  more  ceremony  in  praise  of  Beauty ;  the  antique  forge 
and  tools  lie  impotent,  and  the  Hun's  Column  rises  up  in 
impenetrable  mystery  and  eternal  secrecy. 

The  arduously,  delicately  illuminated  miniatures  and 
illustrations  of  full  deep  coloured  missals,  reflect  innumer- 


122  GERMANY 

able,  concentrated,  earnest  faces,  bent  long  years  in  devo- 
tion and  labour  of  passionate  love.  All  these  ancient  ob- 
jects, these  rooms,  empty  of  the  life  which  wrought  them, 
which  have  witnessed  so  many  births,  deaths,  scenes  of 
love,  lawlessness,  and  cruelty,  the  hatching  of  revolutions, 
the  first  appeals  of  new  religions,  the  quiet  inevitable  prog- 
ress of  the  arts,  changes  of  costumes,  habits  and  manners, 
and  heard  the  gradual  evolution  of  speech  and  language, 
seem  to  be  mourning  with  a  burden  of  the  past,  hung  with 
enwrapping  folds  of  ancient  gloom  and  grandeur,  and  of 
their  own  present  impotency.  Nevertheless,  they  mark  a 
luminous  road.  They  may  be  musty  with  an  old  and  ter- 
ror abiding  memory  of  an  unwieldy  civilization,  but  as  we 
pass  downward  through  the  centuries,  we  are  more  struck 
by  the  chastening,  direct  and  potent  influence  of  that 
"  handmaid  to  Religion,"  art.  We  can  see  man  reaching 
upward  and  outward  in  steady  throbs  as  if  impelled  by  some 
gigantic  cosmic  machine.  We  see  the  progression  of  the 
abstract  and  eternal  ideas  sweeping  aside  the  external  and 
the  temporal ;  crude  forms  and  expressions  crumbling  away 
before  the  mounting,  powerful,  penetrating,  persistent,  deli- 
cate thoughts  of  the  artistic  soul ;  and  as  art  heightened 
and  rarified,  nothing  able  to  bar  its  onward  sweeping  power, 
the  aspect  of  the  cities,  towns,  villages,  and  life  in  the 
home,  becomes  distinctly  different,  moulded  by  the  same  in- 
ward beautifying  power;  all  becoming  as  it  were  purified 
by  flame  and  thought ;  simplified,  the  unnecessary  rejected, 
the  necessary  applied.  And  so  we  leave  behind  with 
traversed  room  after  room,  the  horrors  of  the  past,  wars, 
rapine,  crimes  of  political  and  ecclesiastical  corruption,  hold- 
ing only  to  those  necessary,  beautiful  and  illuminating  things 
which  must,  from  very  virtue  of  their  own  necessity,  exist. 


NUREMBERG 

GERTRUDE  NORMAN 

THERE  is  a  subtle  charm  about  Nuremberg  which 
can  be  found  nowhere  else  in  Germany.  Its  great 
age  carries  one  back  to  those  shadows  of  tradition 
where  only  silence  greets  us.  We  learn  that  it  sprang  up 
gradually  from  the  midst  of  woods  and  marshes  and  that 
during  the  Migrations  was  sacked  by  the  Huns,  their  king 
Attila  probably  passing  through  the  little  town,  murdering 
and  plundering.  There  is  little  proof,  as  in  the  more 
southern  towns,  of  a  Roman  colonization,  but  later  it  was 
taken  by  Charlemagne  and  came  under  the  rule  of  the 
Frankish  kings.  The  first  authentic  mention  of  Nurem- 
berg occurs  in  a  document  about  1050,  which  was  called 
into  existence  by  the  founding  of  the  castle.  About  this 
time  a  mint,  custom  house  and  market  were  established. 
After  the  first  persecution  of  the  Jews,  the  entire  town  was 
burned  down  by  them,  but  rebuilt  in  1120.  In  1127  it  en- 
dured a  long  siege  :  the  emperor  Lothair  took  it  from  the 
Duke  of  Swabia  and  gave  it  to  Henry  the  Proud  of  Bavaria 
about  1130,  but  in  1138  it  was  re- united  by  Conrad  III.  to 
the  German  Empire  and  for  the  next  three  or  four  centuries 
belonged  to  the  Hohenstaufens  and  was  much  favoured  by 
the  Emperors.  Gradually  around  the  castle  grew  up  the 
little  winding  streets  and  houses,  and  a  strange  mixture  of 
races,  Germans,  Franks  and  Sclavs,  converged  to  its  centre. 
Not  only  a  special  dialect  was  the  result  and  the  art  of  the 
future  ages  stamped  propitiously  by  this  influx  of  various 


124  GERMANY 

nationalities,  but  an  enormous  business  energy  became 
prominent,  the  city  soon  becoming  the  centre  of  the  vast 
trading  procession  between  the  Levant  and  Western 
Europe,  and  with  Augsburg,  the  chief  medium  for  the  valu- 
able products  of  Italy.  Barbarossa  often  came  to  Nurem- 
berg, adding  to  the  castle  and  making  it  an  Imperial  strong- 
hold. The  progress  of  the  city  was  greatly  promoted  by 
the  privileges  granted  to  it  by  this  Emperor  and  in  1219  it 
received  from  Frederick  II.  the  charter  making  it  a  free 
imperial  city,  independent  of  allegiance  to  all  but  the  Em- 
peror. The  years,  from  1225  and  onward,  were  a  period 
of  much  lawlessness  all  over  Germany,  murder  and  violence 
being  matters  of  every  day  occurrence.  The  power  of  the 
Princes  was  almost  anarchic :  the  strength  of  the  robber 
Barons  a  source  of  menace  to  everybody's  safety.  In  1259 
all  the  towns  had  to  band  together  to  protect  themselves  and 
their  travelling  merchants  against  these  robber  knights  who 
swooped  down  on  them  from  their  castles. 

The  government  of  Nuremberg  was  originally  vested  in 
the  patrician  families,  but  in  1344  they  were  expelled  by  the 
civic  guild,  only  later  to  return  and  reap  a  greater  control 
than  ever.  The  office  of  Burggraf  (originally  a  deputy- 
governor  in  the  name  of  the  Emperor)  was  first  held  by 
Frederick  I.  (1218)  of  the  Zollern  family,  under  Henry  IV. 
But  these  governors  soon  acquired  independent  power  and 
in  1363  became  Furstens  or  Princes.  In  1226  Conradin, 
nephew  of  the  ruling  Duke  of  Bavaria,  became  Burgrave 
of  Nuremberg,  but  he  had  to  pledge  his  possessions  in  order 
to  pay  back  a  loan,  and  in  1269  Duke  Ludwig  and  Henry 
of  Bavaria  took  equal  rights  in  Nuremberg.  Nevertheless, 
it  still  continued  to  retain  its  independent  rights  as  a  free 
city.  There  were  constant  discussions  and  fights  between 


NUREMBERG  125 

the  Margraves  and  the  citizens,  but  it  did  not  materially 
interfere  with  the  rapid  growth  and  progress  of  the  city. 
The  Emperors  constantly  came  and  made  it  their  head- 
quarters on  account  of  the  good  hunting  in  the  surrounding 
forests,  and  it  also  attracted  thousands  of  pilgrims,  owing  to 
the  miracle-working  relics  of  St.  Sebald,  which  it  possessed. 
As  early  as  1020-1080  pilgrims  began  to  flock  to  Nurem- 
berg and  this  alone  was  enough  to  attract  commerce  and 
success.  The  story  of  this  remarkable  monk,  St.  Sebald, 
the  son,  in  all  probability,  of  some  Danish,  Irish,  or  British 
Christian  king,  his  early  brilliant  theological  career  in  Paris 
and  his  subsequent  relinquishment  of  all  worldly  goods,  hap- 
piness, fame  and  comfort  for  the  service  of  Christ,  is  fraught 
with  much  tender  interest.  He  settled  in  the  great  forests 
outside  of  Nuremberg,  performing  miracles,  healing  the 
sick,  fasting  and  praying.  He  was  buried  on  the  spot  where 
St.  Sebald's  Church  now  stands,  and  his  relics,  of  which  in- 
numerable miracles  are  still  recorded,  lie  in  the  beautiful 
shrine  made  by  Vischer  in  1507. 

In  1298  took  place  another  awful  massacre  of  the  Jews 
all  over  Franconia.  In  1340  Nuremberg  entered  into  a 
treaty  with  Wurzburg  and  Rothenburg  for  the  mutual  pro- 
tection of  the  Bavarian  Dukes.  In  the  wars  of  succession, 
at  the  time  of  Ludwig  the  Bavarian,  the  latter  had  taken 
his  side.  Under  Maximilian  of  Bavaria  in  1447-1491 
Nuremberg  reached  her  greatest  height  of  prosperity,  where 
she  comparatively  remained  for  the  next  two  centuries. 
She  possessed  at  this  time  an  independent  domain  and  fur- 
nished 6,000  righting  men  to  Maximilian's  army.  Her 
artisans  worked  in  all  sorts  of  metals ;  there  were  smiths, 
cutlers,  armourers,  casters  in  bronze,  and  gold  and  silver- 
smiths. Also  sculptors,  painters,  engravers,  mathematicians, 


126  GERMANY 

etc.  In  1414  John  Huss  passed  through  Nuremberg  on 
his  daring  reforming  journey.  Although  given  up  to  trade 
and  merchandise,  the  Nurembergers  were  full  of  a  deep  re- 
ligious enthusiasm,  and  in  1453  eleven  burghers  went  on  a 
crusade  on  hearing  that  Constantinople  had  been  taken  by 
the  Turks. 

In  1494  there  was  another  antagonistic  movement  against 
the  unfortunate  Jews,  who  had  chiefly  carried  on  the  pro- 
fession of  medicine  (the  business  of  money-lending  was  car- 
ried on  by  the  monasteries  !),  they  were  expelled  and  on  pain 
of  death  forbidden  to  sleep  even  within  the  walls.  At  a 
later  period  the  gates  were  even  closed  upon  the  Protestant 
weavers  exiled  from  France  and  Flanders,  who,  however, 
found  an  asylum  in  other  German  cities  and  by  their  skill 
and  talent  soon  rendered  themselves  successful  competitors 
to  the  prejudiced  Nurembergers.  The  citizens  of  Nurem- 
berg early  adopted,  with  their  neighbouring  city  Augsburg, 
the  Reformed  Faith,  and  clung  to  it  for  several  years,  no 
Romanist  being  allowed  to  hold  property  in  the  town.  In 
1518  Luther  came  to  Nuremberg  and  we  read  that  both 
Diirer  and  Hans  Sachs  were  devoted  admirers  and  ardent 
upholders  of  his.  In  the  famous  conflict  between  Wallen- 
stein  and  Gustavus  Adolphus,  Nuremberg  took  the  part  of 
the  latter.  This -awful  siege  drained  the  city  of  all  its  wealth 
and  plunged  it  into  debt,  exhausting  it  in  every  way,  and 
this  period  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War  inflicted  a  calamitous 
and  seriously  permanent  blow  to  the  city.  Down  to  the  peace 
of  Pressburg,  Nuremberg  possessed  a  constitution  of  its 
own,  but  in  1805  it  was  taken  possession  of  by  the  French, 
and  to  this  period  belongs  the  cruel  execution  by  order  of 
Napoleon,  of  John  Palm,  the  Bookseller.  In  1806  Nurem- 
berg ceased  to  be  an  independent  city,  and  was  given  over 


NUREMBERG  127 

to  the  newly  established  Bavarian  Monarchy  by  the  French 
Emperor. 

The  oldest  chronicler  of  Nuremberg  was  Ulman  Stromerj 
he  was  also  the  first  man  to  set  up  a  paper  mill  (1390— 
1407). 

A  little  later  the  great  names  of  Wohlgemuth  and  his 
noble  pupil  Durer  began  to  adorn  the  pages  of  her  history 
(1435-1519).  And  now  also  began  that  lavish  expenditure 
for  the  adornment  of  her  person ;  such  incidents  for  in- 
stance crop  up  to  establish  the  proof  of  the  Nurembergers' 
great  love  for  their  city,  as  in  1447  the  voting  of  five  hun- 
dred florins  for  the  gilding  of  the  beautiful  fountain  in  the 
Hauptmarktplatz. 

Diirer's  personality,  works  and  life,  have  occupied  many 
students  and  the  career  of  this  gentle,  devoted,  ardent  and 
painstaking  genius  is  well  known.  He  was  both  painter, 
sculptor,  engraver,  mathematician  and  veritable  northern 
Leonardo. 

1529  saw  the  name  of  Adam  Krafft,  the  sculptor,  ap- 
pearing on  the  scroll.  Between  1440  and  1503  Veit  Stoss 
lived,  the  best  wood  carver  of  his  time  and  also  a  beautiful 
carver  in  stone,  painter,  engraver  and  mechanical  architect. 
His  most  famous  piece  of  wood  carving  is  the  beautiful 
Nuremberg  Madonna.  A  remarkable  altarpiece  and  other 
exquisite  works  of  his  are  to  be  seen  in  the  Lorenz-Kirche. 
Nuremberg  at  this  time  was  the  incentive  for  many  reveal- 
ing practical  necessities  and  remarkable  inventions  as  well 
as  for  her  artistic  beauties.  In  1380  cards  were  manufac- 
tured ;  in  1390  the  first  paper  mill  was  built;  in  1356  the 
first  cannon  balls  were  cast.  Watches  were  made  in  oval 
form,  called  the  Nuremberg  egg,  by  Peter  Heebe,  in  the 
year  1500.  In  1517  the  first  gunlock  was  invented.  In 


128  GERMANY 

1550  Erasmus  Ebner  discovered  that  particular  alloy  of 
metals,  composing  brass.  Nuremberg  also  gave  birth  to 
Veit  Hirschvogel  and  his  three  sons,  famous  as  potters  and 
glass  painters,  and  also  promulgators  of  the  art  of  enamel- 
ling. In  1560  Hans  Lobeinger  invented  the  air  gun,  and 
in  1690  Christopher  Denner  invented  the  clarionet.  A  few 
weeks  after  the  birth  of  Diirer,  in  1471,  Johann  Muller 
came  to  Nuremberg.  He  was  a  great  mathematical  genius, 
and  looked  upon  that  city  as  the  centre  of  Europe,  the 
meeting  place  of  art  and  industry.  Durer's  book  on 
Geometry  was  due  to  his  influence,  and  also  the  beautiful 
chart  he  made  of  the  heavens.  Muller  also  introduced 
popular  scientific  lectures  and  organized  the  manufacturing 
of  nautical  and  astronomical  instruments.  Martin  Behaim, 
that  adventurous  navigator  and  constructor  of  the  globe,  was 
also  his  pupil. 

Nuremberg  is  very  mediaeval  in  both  atmosphere  and 
appearance.  It  is  surrounded  by  feudal  walls  and  turrets, 
strengthened  in  more  recent  times  by  ramparts  and  bastions 
resembling  the  early  Italian  fortifications,  these  being  en- 
closed by  a  wide  ditch.  Four  principal  arched  gates,  flanked 
by  massive  towers  are  not  only  intensely  interesting,  but 
serve  to  complete  a  picture  as  of  a  coronet  of  antique 
towers  encircling  the  city.  One  is  immediately  carried 
back  to  a  remote  age  as  one  threads  one's  way  through  the 
irregular  streets  and  examines  the  quaint,  gable-faced  houses, 
the  churches  and  other  monuments  of  religion,  charity  and 
art.  All  is  singularly  perfect  having  miraculously  escaped 
the  ravages  and  storms  of  wars,  sieges  and  even  the  Ref- 
ormation. The  patrician  citizens  have  homes  like  palaces. 
Many  are  still  inhabited  by  families  who  trace  their  descent 
back  to  the  city's  earliest  days.  A  number  of  the  houses, 


NUREMBERG  129 

though  built  in  the  fashion  of  the  Fifteenth  Century,  with 
narrow,  highly  ornamented  fronts  and  acutely  pointed  gables, 
are  very  large,  telling  one  poignantly  of  the  luxury  in  which 
they  lived  at  that  period.  The  part  in  which  the  family 
lived  was  richly  decorated  with  stucco  and  carving,  and 
there  is  little  wonder  that  Nuremberg  acquired  the  name  of 
the  Gothic  Athens.  The  Italian  Cardinal  Eneas  Silvio, 
who  visited  Germany  in  1459,  m  writing  of  the  glories  of 
the  then  resplendent  German  Empire,  said,  that  "  the  Kings 
of  Scotland  would  be  glad  if  they  were  housed  as  well  as 
the  moderately  well-to-do  burghers  of  Nuremberg,  and  that 
Augsburg  is  not  surpassed  in  riches  by  any  city  in  the 
world."  All  the  cities  at  this  time,  but  especially  Nurem- 
berg, cultivated  music,  each  town  having  its  "  master- 
singers  "  and  musical  guilds  and  on  a  Sunday  afternoon  the 
members  would  meet  and  give  performances  in  the  Town 
Hall  or  in  churches.  Prizes  of  philigree-wire,  wreaths  of 
silver  and  gold,  were  given  for  the  best  compositions.  The 
first  prize  was  a  representation  of  David  playing  the  harp, 
stamped  on  a  golden  slate.  The  last  performance  given  in 
Nuremberg  was  in  1770. 

Nuremberg,  at  present  may  be  said  to  be  the  second  larg- 
est town  in  Bavaria,  and  the  first  in  commercial  importance. 
The  best  point  of  surveyance  of  the  old  town  is  from  the 
burg  or  castle,  picturesquely  situated  on  the  top  of  a  rock 
on  the  north  side  of  the  town.  This  castle,  dating  back,  in 
its  present  form,  to  the  year  1151  is  a  store-house  of  inter- 
esting relics  and  shuddering  moments  for  the  imaginative 
and  sensitive  sight-seer.  The  collection  of  all  those  tortu- 
ous instruments,  especially  that  of  the  "  Iron  Virgin,"  that 
climax-reaching  of  all  degenerate  horrors,  gives  one  unpala- 
table glimpses  into  what  the  minds  of  the  majority  were  like, 


130  GERMANY 

in  those  mediaeval  times,  except  when  they  were  exalted  by 
a  devotion  to  art  or  the  gentleness  bred  by  a  true  religious 
sentiment.  We  are  infinitely  thankful  for  their  great  heri- 
tage of  artistic  genius,  but  more  than  grateful  that  their 
times  are  remote,  and  to  be  resuscitated  only  by  the  divine 
gift  of  memory.  That  gift  which  can  bring  us,  in  an  almost 
vivid  nearness,  to  the  purest  and  most  soul  entrancing  days 
of  Greece,  Rome,  Egypt  and  of  mediaeval  glory  ;  which 
enables  us  through  the  intervening  mists  to  see  the  lumi- 
nous countenances  of  Homer,  Plato,  Dante,  Leonardo, 
Angelo  and  Diirer;  and  again  are  we  initiated  into  the 
eternal  secret  whisperings,  which  bespeak,  that  in  Beauty 
lies  the  greatest  and  only  permanent  strength,  the  solitary 
power  which  alone  is  lasting,  which  never  dies,  but  ever 
repeats  itself  in  all  times  and  climes.  "  The  Beautiful  is 
higher  than  the  Good.  The  Beautiful  includes  in  it  the 
Good." 

In  all  the  beautiful  Gothic  churches  of  Nuremberg  are 
to  be  seen  innumerable  examples  of  the  noble  artists  of  her 
great  art-cycle.  In  the  awesome  and  mighty  edifice  of  St. 
Lawrence  are  miracles  of  carving  by  Adam  Krafft ;  the 
most  noticeable  perhaps  being  a  receptacle  in  the  form  of  a 
Gothic  spire,  sixty-five  feet  in  height.  There  is  also  a 
beautiful  piece  by  Veit  Stoss  representing  the  Salutation. 
One  of  the  most  precious  art  treasures  in  the  entire  rich 
land  of  Germany  is  in  the  equally  magnificent  church  of 
St.  Sebald's.  It  is  an  enormous  bronze  sarcophagus  and 
canopy,  adorned  with  many  statues  and  reliefs,  the  master 
piece  of  Peter  Vischer.  This  glorious  monument  took  the 
incomparable  artist  fifteen  years  to  accomplish,  from  1506 
to  1521. 

Everywhere  are  works  of  art,  from  the  artistic  decorations 


NUREMBERG  131 

over  doors  and  windows  to  the  masterpieces  of  Durer,  Van 
Dyck,  Wohlgemuth,  etc. 

Most  of  Durer' s  works  are  sadly  scattered  from  his  native 
town,  adorning  the  galleries  of  Munich,  Vienna  and  Berlin. 
But  his  undying  fame  haloes  the  city,  as  the  fame  of  the 
past  glorious  days  of  Greece  halo  her  very  name  with  a 
transcendental  lustre.  His  statue,  copied  from  the  portrait 
by  himself,  stands  in  the  Albrecht-Diirer-Platz.  In  his 
house  are  copies  of  his  masterpieces,  and  a  fascinating  col- 
lection of  antique  and  very  typical  German  furniture.  The 
exquisite  art  of  staining  glass  is  the  curiously  fitting  occu- 
pation of  the  warder  who  guides  the  traveller  over  the 
ancient  home  of  Durer. 

Wood-carving,  glass-staining,  medal  and  medallion  en- 
graving, copying  of  the  antique  furniture  and  old  cabinets 
and  the  world  famous  toy-making,  are  only  a  few,  but  the 
most  attractive  of  the  occupations  of  the  Nuremberger. 
Exquisite  linen,  superbly  embroidered,  and  decorated  with 
drawn  work  is  to  be  found  in  abundance.  In  fact,  this  work 
is  a  specialty  of  Bavaria's.  In  the  spring,  summer  and  also 
at  Christmas  time,  peasant  women  come  in  from  the  moun- 
tain districts,  with  baskets  full  of  dainty  doilies,  tablecloths, 
sheets  and  gowns,  in  the  purest  hand-woven  linen,  both 
coarse  and  fine,  the  former  being  the  most  beautiful.  All  is 
edged  with  heavy  hand-made  lace. 

The  atmosphere  of  this  fascinating  city  is  hard  to  leave, 
the  more  one  feeds  on  its  rare  and  delicate  charm.  The 
narrow  streets  are  lined  with  houses  which  lean  towards 
each  other  in  intimate  and  confiding  manner. 

The  windows  are  picturesque  and  prominent,  and  high 
up  on  the  corners,  balconies  jut  out  in  harmonious  con- 
trariness, and  as  one  steps  through  the  doorway  into  the 


132  GERMANY 

mystic  sanctuary  of  some  ancient  house  one  finds  oneself 
suddenly  in  an  old  world  atmosphere  of  rich  and  legendary 
tapestries,  deft  and  suggestive  wood-carving,  and  absorbing 
old  prints.  Doors,  panelling,  floors  and  ceilings,  inlaid, 
carved  and  chiselled,  and  everywhere  brass,  copper,  iron  and 
pewter  utensils,  to  awaken  envious  longings  in  the  heart  of 
the  collector. 

After  a  long  day,  when  the  brain  and  heart  are  full  of  new 
and  lasting  treasures  and  visions,  one  must  wend  one's  way 
to  the  quaint  little  Bratwurst-Glocklein,  and  step  over  its 
high  doorsill,  to  enter  the  minute  room  so  dimly  lit  with 
many  small  windows,  seat  oneself  at  one  of  the  little  tables 
on  one  of  the  wooden  benches,  look  into  the  burning  char- 
coal furnace  curling  up  over  the  bricks,  watch  the  rosy- 
cheeked  maids  cooking  the  "  wurstlein  "  and  dream  of  the 
day  behind  one  which  has  brought  and  taught  one  so 
much. 


OBERAMMERGAU 

GERTRUDE  NORMAN 

AS  one  draws  upward  towards  the  little  station  of 
Oberammergau  one  is  conscious  of  a  peace  descend- 
ing, of  an  atmosphere  as  unusual  as  it  is  strange 
and  elusive.  The  very  air  seems  impregnated  with  a  tender 
benediction ;  the  atmosphere  poignant  with  some  great,  om- 
nipotent thought  possessed  and  held  throughout  the  cen- 
turies. It  is  indeed  a  peaceful  village  into  which  one  glides, 
leaving  behind  great  ranges  of  mountains,  enclosing  one  in 
a  God-made  circle  of  blue  haze  and  distance ;  an  infinitely 
gentle  picture  which  meets  one's  gaze. 

Not  one  of  primitive  grandeur  or  ecstatic  loveliness,  but 
one  of  simple,  reflective  and  introspective  beauty ;  one  to 
inspire  the  thoughts  to  climb,  to  enable  them  to  remain  at 
ease  at  a  certain  elevation  with  a  quiet  joy  and  not  to  awe 
one  into  moods  of  tragic  gloom,  impossible  speculation,  or 
an  almost  uncontemplative  passion,  which  the  overpowering 
majesty  of  certain  vistas  is  apt  to  do.  On  every  side  are 
verdant  fields  which  stretch  away  lovingly  to  wooded  hills, 
and  guarding  all  are  stately  mountains,  shedding  tender 
shadows,  rolling  away  to  greater  and  ever  greater  peaks. 

The  first  thing  to  attract  one's  gaze,  even  before  one 
catches  a  glimpse  of  the  village,  attracting  the  eyes  upward, 
is  a  thing  of  mighty  symbolical  import.  One  of  the  peaks, 
detached  as  it  were  and  isolated  from  the  rest,  rises  up,  nar- 
rowing at  the  summit  to  receive  as  its  crown,  a  lofty  simple 


134  GERMANY 

cross.  The  elusive  grandeur  of  this  moment  is  a  prayer,  a 
song,  a  comforting  caress.  So  high  is  it,  that  the  pine  trees 
cease  to  grow,  and  the  summit  is  rocky  with  only  low  shrubs 
and  bushes  clinging  to  the  ground,  leaving  all  stencil-clear 
for  the  reception  of  the  delicate  spire.  It  points  upward, 
year  after  year,  like  the  eternal  flame  of  the  indomitable 
spirit,  in  sunshine,  storm,  snow  and  gloom.  Even  in  na- 
ture's blackest  moods,  though  it  become  invisible,  still  is  it 
there,  the  everlasting  symbol  of  spirituality,  aspiration  and 
eternity.  The  cross  of  the  Kofel,  as  the  Oberammergauers 
call  it,  is  faced  with  some  shining  metal  which  catches  the 
sun,  the  wall  of  rock  below  changing  colour  with  every 
mood  of  the  day ;  now  blue  and  green,  now  brown  and 
purple,  now  dark  and  awesome  with  the  reflection  of  some 
great  inrolling  cloud,  now  white  and  luminous,  like  the  holy 
guardian  of  the  Grail,  in  the  moonlight !  Wheresoever  one 
may  wander  in  this  consecrated  little  spot  one  cannot,  nor 
would  not,  escape  this  silent  voice  of  uplifting  sorrow.  The 
little  village  is  winding  and  of  exceeding  picturesqueness, 
the  intrusion  of  several  modern  buildings  unable  to  effect 
its  sweetness  of  atmosphere.  The  houses  are  of  delicately 
coloured  plaster,  or  sunburned  to  a  deep  velvety  brown. 
Through  the  village,  bordered  at  first  on  either  side  by  cot- 
tages and  later  running  out  to  fragrant  flower-laden  fields, 
is  a  clear,  limpid,  opalescent-hued  stream,  reflective  also  of 
the  life  of  its  hamlet  and  the  clarity  of  its  mission.  It  is  a 
stream  in  which  to  look  long  and  deeply  ;  a  stream  to  breed 
dreams  of  purity,  of  steadfast  faith  and  musical  art ;  a  stream 
to  cleanse  and  make  innocent,  to  draw  one  into  a  mesh  of 
endless  visions  of  eternal  wonder. 

By  its  waters  one   feels  new-born,   re-awakened.     The 
whole    place    is  an   enchantment,   wherein  everything  is  a 


OBERAMMERGAU  135 

symbol,  from  the  lives  of  the  inhabitants  to  the  great  theatre 
which  greets  one  on  first  drawing  into  the  village. 

The  theatre,  which  was  built,  in  its  present  form  in  1830, 
and  improved  in  1890,  is  a  severely  simple,  solid  and  earnest 
looking  structure.  High  over  its  entrance  a  clear  white 
cross  appears,  to  face  the  Calvary  Group,  marble-white  on 
the  green  hill,  and  the  great  cross  of  the  Kofel. 

All  here  work  in  unison;  art,  religion,  the  labourer  of 
the  fields,  wood-carvers,  builders,  and  potters;  all  these 
sturdy,  aesthetic  peasants  with  their  remarkable  culture,  re- 
finement, unusual  personal  beauty,  dramatic  ideal  and  re- 
moteness of  position.  Originally  Oberammergau  was  a 
Celtic  settlement  and  later  in  the  time  of  the  Romans  a  station 
on  their  military  road  from  Verona  to  Augsburg.  It  was 
named  by  them  "  Ad  Coveliacas  "  meaning  the  station  at 
the  Kofel. 

From  the  Ninth  to  the  Twelfth  Century  it  was  in  pos- 
session of  the  Welfs  and  one  of  their  Dukes,  Ethiko,  built 
a  castle  and  also  founded  a  monastery  there.  It  was  in  the 
year  1167  that  the  village  of  Oberammergau  was  trans- 
ferred to  the  Hohenstaufens,  and  exactly  one  hundred  years 
later,  to  the  House  of  Wittelsbach.  It  has  always  enjoyed 
a  great  amount  of  freedom,  being  granted  more  rights  and 
privileges  than  any  other  of  the  near  lying  villages.  Under 
the  rule  of  Ludwig  the  Bavarian  (1330)  it  was  allowed  even 
more  freedom,  and  immunity  from  serfdom.  It  was  at  this 
time  that  the  above  named  Duke  founded  the  famous  old 
monastery  of  Ettal,  near  Oberammergau.  From  that  time 
on,  for  a  long  period  of  years,  the  prosperity  of  the  little 
town  was  assured.  Not  only  did  the  Emperors,  on  their 
hunting  expeditions  pass  through,  but  continuous  caravans  of 
both  German  and  Italian  merchants ;  introducing  the  vil- 


136  GERMANY 

lagers  not  only  to  the  progression  and  culture  of  the  outside 
world,  but  also  giving  them  the  impetus  and  encourage- 
ment for  the  carrying  on  of  their  wood-carving  (combined 
with  the  possibility  of  selling  it,  and  having  carried  to  other 
towns  and  countries).  It  was  probably  about  this  time  that 
the  Passion  Play  was  first  given,  for  in  the  Thirteenth  and 
Fourteenth  Centuries  the  various  monasteries,  especially  in 
southern  Germany  and  the  Tyrol,  were  in  the  habit  of  giv- 
ing both  Miracle  and  Religious  plays.  It  was  in  England 
originally,  as  far  as  can  be  gathered,  that  the  first  Mystery 
plays  were  given  and  from  thence  they  swiftly  spread  all 
over  Christianized  Europe.  In  Augsburg  "  Moralities  " 
were  constantly  performed  from  the  year  1200  down  to  the 
time  of  Holbein. 

Commercially  and  artistically  Oberammergau  continued 
to  have  a  glorious  prosperity  until  the  breaking  out  of  the 
terrible  wars  in  the  Sixteenth  Century.  Violent,  wild  and 
reckless  armies  of  soldiers,  passed  ceaselessly  through  the 
heretofore  peaceful  hamlet,  leaving  behind  poverty, 
famine  and  worst  of  all,  the  hopeless  ravages  of  the  plague. 
It  was  then  the  vow  was  made,  that  if  only  the  plague 
might  be  taken  from  amongst  them,  they  would,  in  thank- 
fulness, give  the  Passion  Play  every  ten  years.  Oberam- 
mergau never  again  attained  the  commercial  importance 
which  had  been  hers,  but  she  nevertheless  enjoyed  a  long 
period  of  happiness  and  peace  until  war  again  broke  out  at 
the  beginning  of  the  Eighteenth  Century,  when  hordes  of 
Austrians  and  Hungarians  besieged  the  valley,  devastating 
all  within  their  fierce  breath  of  destructiveness.  Then  came 
the  Austrian  wars  of  Succession,  and  later  the  disastrous 
period  of  the  French  invasions.  Famine  again  and  innum- 
erable losses  were  endured  by  the  plucky  little  town,  but  at 


OBERAMMERGAU  137 

last  peace  has  settled  once  more  within  her  borders  by  the 
soldering  together  of  the  German  Empire  in  Peace  and  Unity. 
Wood-carving,  apart  from  the  enormous  influx  of  thou- 
sands of  strangers  from  all  over  the  world  to  witness  the 
Passion  Play  every  ten  years  and  the  "  David  Play  "  every 
five  (formerly  the  latter  was  given  only  every  thirty  years), 
is  still  the  chief  work  of  the  peasant-artists.  Their  talent 
in  this  direction  is  full  of  a  rare  and  most  delicate  perfection. 
Oberammergau,  as  early  as  the  year  1 1 1 1  introduced  the  art  of 
wood-carving  into  Berchtesgarten,  which  points  to  the  fact 
that  she  was  the  founder,  or  at  least  the  original  home  of  this 
art  in  Bavaria.  Her  salesmen  used  to  travel  out  into  the 
distant  towns  with  their  packs  on  their  backs,  achieving  for 
their  treasures  a  wide  and  enviable  fame,  and  they  now 
possess  branches  for  the  disposal  of  their  beautiful  art 
works  at  Liverpool,  Bremen,  Hamburg,  Amsterdam,  Gron- 
ingen,  Drontheim,  Copenhagen,  St.  Petersburg,  Moscow, 
Lima  and  Cadiz. 


AUGSBURG 

GER  TR  UDE  NORMAN 

THE  very  name  brings  up  vivid  dreams  of  ancient 
splendour,  and  the  picture  of  that  vast,  endless  sea 
of  evolution,  on  artistic  and  progressive  lines, 
which  is  comparable  only  to  that  of  Italy's. 

Wiirzburg,  Regensburg,  Bamberg,  Landshut,  Ingolstadt, 
Bayreuth,  Oberammergau ;  is  it  possible  that  all  are  con- 
tained in  that  one  enchanting  word,  Bavaria?  And  the 
sapphire  lakes,  enclosed  by,  or  revealing,  over  wooded  hills, 
the  glistening  snow  peaks  and  chaste,  wide  glaciers,  and 
those  vast,  deep  forests  written  of  by  both  Tacitus  and 
Caesar,  so  impressive  in  their  grandeur,  only  the  soul  of  the 
observer  and  not  the  pen  of  the  writer,  can  do  justice  to 
their  mystic  loveliness. 

From  Munich  it  is  an  easy  run  to  Augsburg,  which  is 
virtually  the  capital  of  the  circle  of  Swabia  and  Neuburg 
and  the  principal  seat  of  South  German  commerce.  The 
latter  word  brings  a  mundane  clang  with  it,  but  one  need 
have  no  fear  that  one  is  about  to  see  something  similar  to 
the  unattractive  toils  of  an  English  or  American  commercial 
town  ;  for  Augsburg,  sheds  with  the  richest  of  Bavarian 
towns,  an  atmosphere  of  mediaeval  charm,  if  not  of  such 
complete  artistic  beauty. 

Its  name  is  derived  from  the  Roman  Emperor  Augustus, 
who  on  the  conquest  of  Rhaetia  by  Drusus,  established  a 


AUGSBURG  139 

Roman  colony  here  and  called  it  Augusta  Vindelicorum. 
This  was  about  the  year  14  B.  C. 

About  the  Fifth  Century  we  read  that  the  town  was 
sacked  by  the  Huns  and  later,  came,  with  the  rest  of 
Bojuvarii,  under  the  rule  of  the  Prankish  Kings.  In  the 
war  of  Charlemagne  against  Duke  Thassilo  it  was  almost 
entirely  destroyed.  Later,  after  the  division  and  dissolution 
of  the  Empire,  it  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Dukes  of 
Swabia.  It  gradually  rose  as  a  prosperous  manufacturing 
town,  becoming  so  noted  for  its  wealth  and  beauty  that  it 
was  one  of  the  chief  points  desired  by  the  constantly  attack- 
ing and  avaricious  Hungarians  (936-954). 

In  1276  it  was  raised  to  the  rank  of  a  Free  Imperial  city, 
which  position  it  retained,  despite  many  internal  changes  in 
its  constitution,  until  1806,  when  it  was  annexed  to  Bavaria 
by  Napoleon.  Augsburg  reached  its  greatest  height,  both 
for  prosperity  and  beauty,  during  the  Fifteenth  and  Six- 
teenth Centuries.  Its  merchants  were  literally  citizen- 
princes,  enjoying  the  most  enormous  individual  wealth  and 
power. 

Three  daughters  of  Augsburg  merchants  married  princes. 
The  unfortunate  Agnes  Bernauer  (who  was  secretly  mar- 
ried to  Albrecht  III.)  and  who  was  drowned  in  the  Danube 
near  Straubing  by  his  father,  Duke  Ernest  of  Bavaria  in 
1435,  the  latter  being  so  enraged  at  his  son's  supposed 
mesalliance.  Then  there  was  Clara  von  Detten  who  was 
married  to  Elector  Frederick  the  Victorious  of  the  Palati- 
nate, and  Philippina  Welser  to  Arch-Duke  Ferdinand  of 
Austria.  The  famous  Fugger  family,  the  richest  people  of 
their  century,  were  originally  but  poor  weavers.  Their 
house  on  the  Maximilianstrasse,  with  its  beautifully  painted 
and  frescoed  front,  is,  to  this  day  one  of  the  most  interest- 


140  GERMANY 

ing  houses  to  be  seen  in  Augsburg.  Curiously  interesting 
too  is  the  Fuggerei,  a  small  quarter  of  Augsburg,  founded 
by  Jacob  Fugger,  "  the  Rich"  in  1514.  It  consists  of 
106  charming  little  houses,  like  some  ideal  Morrisonian 
village,  for  the  benefit  of  very  poor  Roman  Catholic  fami- 
lies. The  miniature  town  with  its  spotless  asphalt  streets, 
two  storied  cottages,  gaily  coloured  little  doors  and  flower- 
potted  window  sills,  and  pumps  of  clear  running  water,  is 
enclosed  within  its  own  gates.  The  Maximilianstrasse  is 
exceptionally  handsome,  broad  and  long.  In  the  centre  of 
the  street,  at  harmonious  distances,  are  three  magnificent 
bronze  fountains ;  one  of  Augustus,  the  founder  of  the 
city,  and  the  other  two  of  Hercules  and  Mercury.  An- 
other very  beautiful  statue  is  the  "  War  Monument  "  in 
the  Frohnhof,  near  the  Cathedral.  The  latter  is  a  remark- 
ably beautiful  Gothic  edifice  begun  in  995  but  altered  con- 
siderably in  1321-1431.  The  most  mediaeval  looking 
street  is  the  Jacobstrasse,  which  leads  down  from  the 
Barfusserkirche  to  the  Fuggerei.  Near  the  latter  stands 
the  house  where  the  elder  Holbein  lived  and  the  younger 
Holbein  was  born.  The  Rathaus  is  one  of  the  most  re- 
markable of  Renaissance  buildings  in  Bavaria.  The 
"  Goldener  Saal,"  said  to  be  the  finest  of  the  numerous 
halls  in  Germany,  is  brilliantly  decorated  in  Italian  rococo 
style,  the  exquisitely  carved  ceiling  being  hung  from  above 
by  twenty-four  chains.  All  the  rooms  in  this  especial 
Rathaus  impress  one  by  their  extravagant  wealth  of  decora- 
tion, splendid  ancient  stoves  and  treasures  of  every  sort. 
St.  Annakirche,  the  Fuggerhaus  and  St.  Ulrics  are  all  full 
of  both  beauty  and  historical  interest.  The  Royal  Picture 
Gallery  which  is  situated  in  the  old  monastery  of  St. 
Catherines,  contains  some  very  fine  works,  but  is  chiefly 


AUGSBURG  141 

notable  for  its  collection  of  the  works  of  two  Augsburg 
artists,  Holbein  and  Burkmair.  During  the  Sixteenth  Cen- 
tury Augsburg  was  the  seat  of  many  Diets  held  by 
Charles  V.  In  1530  the  Protestant  princes  handed  him, 
in  the  above  mentioned  Rathaus,  the  famous  "  Confession  " 
(drawn  up  by  Melanchthon  of  Nuremberg).  The  article 
consisted  of  a  reformed  creed  containing  twenty-one  articles 
in  the  name  of  the  Evangelical  states  of  Germany,  which 
lucidly  explained  the  doctrinal  position  of  the  Lutheran 
church;  a  religious  peace,  of  the  greatest  import  to  the  re- 
ligious welfare  of  Germany,  was  also  concluded  here  in 
1530.  In  1632  the  city  was  besieged  and  captured  by 
Gustavus  Adolphus  on  his  slaughtering  journey  through 
Bavaria,  but  after  he  was  vanquished  it  returned  again  to  its 
old  inheritance.  But  the  enormous  trade  and  prosperity  of 
Augsburg  was  for  the  time  being  completely  ruined  by  the 
civil  and  religious  strifes  and  the  long,  bloody  wars  which 
so  racked  Germany  in  the  Fifteenth  and  Sixteenth  Cen- 
turies. In  1703  it  was  bombarded  by  the  Electoral  princes 
of  Bavaria  and  forced  to  pay  a  heavy  contribution,  later  as 
we  have  seen,  becoming  absolutely  Bavarian. 

In  1518  the  first  fire-engine  ever  used  was  invented  in 
Augsburg.  Between  the  years  1500  and  1800  the  gold  and 
silversmiths  guilds  were  everywhere  noted,  even  more  so 
than  those  of  Munich,  or  Nuremberg.  For  the  seeker 
after  these  rare  old  pieces,  or  for  antique  brass,  copper  or 
pewter,  Augsburg  is  a  veritable  treasure  house. 

A  beautiful  portion  of  the  old  wall  is  still  standing  and 
some  fine  old  gates.  Along  the  canal,  the  houses  are  in- 
tensely picturesque,  and  down  the  winding,  narrow  and 
sloping  roads  from  St.  Annaskirche  one  comes  across  en- 
trancing bits  of  mediaevalism.  In  1703  the  ancient  fortifi- 


142  GERMANY 

cations  were  dismantled  and  laid  out  in  public  promenades. 
Many,  many  years  ago  the  famous  Montaigne  wrote,  de- 
claring, that  to  him  the  wonderful  old  city  of  Augsburg  was 
more  beautiful  even  than  Paris. 


KEGENSBURG 

GERTRUDE  NORMAN 

THE  interesting  city  of  Regensburg,  which  was 
ceded  to  Bavaria  only  in  1810,  derives  its  name 
from  the  river  Regen  on  which  it  stands.  The 
Celts,  in  the  days  when  it  was  one  of  their  settlements,  used 
to  call  it  Ratisbon,  the  Romans  later  naming  it  Castra 
Regina.  It  is  in  reality  on  the  Danube,  but  the  Regen 
flows  into  that  mighty  river  just  opposite  to  where  the  city 
was  founded.  It  used  to  be  the  capital  of  the  Romans  in 
those  parts,  holding  as  it  did  such  an  advantageous  position 
on  the  Danube.  The  narrow  stone  bridge,  which  connects 
the  town  with  its  suburb,  was  thrown  over  in  1136. 
Later,  after  the  Roman  power  had  waned,  it  became  the 
seat  of  the  Bavarian  Dukes  and  the  chief  point  of  East 
Frankish  monarchy.  It  was  one  of  the  most  important 
centres  for  the  promulgation  of  Christianity,  for  in  the 
Seventh  Century  St.  Emmeran  founded  the  Abbey  here  and 
in  the  Eighth  St.  Boniface  the  Bishopric.  In  the  Thir- 
teenth Century  it  became  a  Free  Imperial  city,  one  of  the 
most  flourishing  of  all  German  towns  and  a  favourite  re- 
sort, like  Nuremberg,  of  the  Emperors.  Of  enormous  im- 
port was  the  short,  but  vital  hold,  the  spirit  of  the  Refor- 
mation held  here,  and  later  of  the  counter-reformation  in- 
spired by  the  Jesuits. 

From    Regensburg  cargo   boats  used  to    go  down    the 
Danube   to   the  Black  Sea,   with    merchandise    from    the 


144  GERMANY 

Western  and  Southern  countries,  bringing  back  in  turn, 
treasures  from  the  East  as  far  off  as  China.  Even  in  the 
remote  days  of  the  Crusades  the  Regensburg  boatmen  were 
famous,  conveying  down  the  broad  waters  of  the  river  holy 
pilgrims  and  warriors  on  their  way  to  the  Holy  Land.  No 
less  than  seventeen  sieges  are  recorded  as  having  been  en- 
dured by  this  city  during  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  that 
fearful  time  from  which  we  can  nowhere  escape  in  the  his- 
tory of  Bavaria,  almost  completely  ruining  both  the  pros- 
perity and  beauty  of  the  town. 

From  1663  to  1806  it  was  the  seat  of  the  Imperial 
Diets,  sixty-two  of  which  were  held  within  its  walls.  1806 
saw  the  assignment  of  the  town  and  bishopric  to  the  Prince 
Primate  Dalberg,  by  the  Peace  of  Luneville.  In  1809  it 
was  stormed  by  Napoleon,  the  Austrians  experiencing  a 
fearful  defeat  beneath  its  walls,  when  the  city  itself  was 
almost  reduced  to  ashes.  Nevertheless  many  of  the  old 
buildings  remained  mercifully  untouched,  some  of  which 
are  much  older  even  than  those  in  Nuremberg.  A  curious 
and  essentially  characteristic  feature  of  Regensberg  are  the 
towers  attached  to  the  houses,  all  loop-holed,  witnesses  to 
a  day  when  battle,  danger  and  internal  strife  were  of  daily 
occurrence,  The  Golden  Tower,  attached  to  the  Inn  of 
the  Golden  Cross  and  the  one  adorned  with  paintings  of 
David  and  Goliath,  being  the  most  notable.  The  Street  of 
the  Ambassadors  (where  all  the  Ambassadors  of  the  Ger- 
man Diet  used  to  reside),  bears  still  over  the  doors  many  of 
their  Coats  of  Arms.  Of  the  purest  Gothic  style  is  the 
beautiful  old  Cathedral  founded  in  1273.  ^  was  not  com~ 
pleted  till  1634  and  the  towers  are  of  a  still  later  period; 
one  of  the  little  interior  chapels  dates  back  to  the  Eighth 
Century. 


REGENSBURG  145 

An  ancient  Benedictine  monastery  of  Irish  monks, 
named  "  Scoti  "  used  to  stand  on  the  spot  where  now  rises 
the  Schottenkirche,  a  Roman  basilica  of  the  Twelfth  Cen- 
tury. The  Golden  Cross  Inn  is  famous  for  being  the  meet- 
ing place  of  Barbara  Blumenberger  and  Charles  V.  She 
was  the  mother  of  Don  Juan  of  Austria.  Regensburg  is 
full  of  magnificent  pieces  of  architecture  of  every  period. 

Not  far  from  Regensburg,  above  Keilheim,  on  the 
heights  of  the  Michaelsberg,  the  Befreiungshalle,  or  Hall 
of  Liberation,  was  erected  in  1842  by  Ludwig  I.  It  re- 
sembled a  Roman  temple  and  contains,  ranged  within  a  cir- 
cular-domed hall,  statues  in  Carrara  marble  by  Schwan- 
thaler,  and  bronze  shields  made  out  of  French  cannon,  on 
which  are  engraved  the  different  victories  gained  by  the 
Germans  and  the  names  of  their  leaders.  The  walls  are 
lined  with  marble,  the  roof  being  supported  by  granite 
pillars. 

In  his  interesting  little  book  of  his  trip  down  the  Danube 
the  noted  American  historian,  Mr.  Bigelow  writes,  "  The 
slabs  bear  the  names  of  such  as  the  King  of  Bavaria  recog- 
nized as  the  liberators  of  the  Fatherland.  But  we  are 
struck  by  the  names  of  many  Austrian  and  South  German 
mediocrities,  and  the  absence  of  those  who  really  did  make 
their  country  free.  Wellington  is  conspicuous  by  his  ab- 
sence, so  the  noble  Boyen  and  Liitzow.  The  man  whose 
far-sighted  legislation  lifted  Prussia  from  out  the  result  of 
Jena,  is  not  to  be  found  here — we  mean  Stern,  nor  his  able 
successor,  Hardenberg.  The  poets,  thinkers,  the  patriotic 
spirits  that  stirred  the  people  to  heroic  actions,  these  were 
the  ones  who  fought  Katzbach  and  Leipzig,  but  they  are 
not  noticed  on  these  slabs :  Schiller  and  Korner,  whose 
songs  of  liberty  fired  every  German  heart  and  who  sent 


146  GERMANY 

every  schoolboy  into  the  army ;  Arndt  and  Jahn,  Uhland 
and  Fichte — names  that  in  1813  did  more  for  the  German 
success  than  a  fresh  army  corps — of  these  this  Bavarian 
Mausoleum  says  nothing." 

An  easy  trip  from  Regensburg  is  to  that  magnificent 
and  masterly  construction  of  Klenze's,  the  Graeco-Doric 
Temple  of  Walhalla,  a  national  monument  built  by  Lud- 
wig  I.,  also  a  temple  of  fame  to  German's  greatest  men. 
The  temple  architecturally  is  the  exact  copy  of  the  Par- 
thenon. Walhalla  means  "  Walhall  or  Hall  of  the 
Chosen."  The  glorious  view  from  the  platform  extends 
over  the  level  plain  of  Bavaria  to  the  glistening  snow 
peaks  of  the  Alps  in  the  South  and  to  Straubing  and  up  the 
majestic  Danube  to  Regensburg  in  the  East.  Within  are 
innumerable  busts  and  statues  of  Germany's  most  famous 
men,  heroes,  musicians,  statesmen,  artists,  poets,  sages,  etc. 


ROTHENBURG  AND  OTHER  BAVARIAN 
TOWNS 

GERTRUDE  NORMAN 

THIS  gem-like  appendage,  as  it  were,  of  Nurem- 
berg, is  one  gleaming  mass  of  rich  artistic  treas- 
ures and  innumerable  historical  detail.  It  is  per- 
haps the  least  altered  and  purest  existing  example  of  all 
mediaeval  towns,  and  being  more  miniature  and  concen- 
trated than  Nuremberg  is  easier  to  fully  absorb.  It  rises 
before  one's  vision  beautifully  encircled  by  walls,  moats 
and  towers,  rich  in  harmonious  colouring  and  warmth  of 
tone.  The  well  preserved  gabled  houses  are  red-tiled  and 
glow  in  the  sun.  As  far  back  as  942  Rothenburg's  name 
appears  in  the  ancient  documents,  and  for  529  years  it  was 
a  free  city  of  the  Empire  like  most  of  the  Bavarian,  Fran- 
conian  and  Swabian  cities.  During  the  Fourteenth  and 
Fifteenth  Centuries  it  radiated  the  highest  artistic  standards 
in  every  branch  of  art  and  architecture  and  its  industries 
were  similarly  progressive.  During  the  Reformation  its 
sympathies  were  entirely  with  Luther.  In  1525  it  ex- 
perienced the  disturbances  of  the  uprisings  of  the  peasants, 
taking  part  with  them,  and  also  suffered  the  inevitable  re- 
lapse and  degeneration  consequent  on  the  Thirty  Years' 
War.  During  this  period  it  was  several  times  besieged 
and  taken  by  opposing  parties. 

To  the  sojourner  within  its  enthralling  crown  of  walls, 
it  offers  such  a  bewildering  wealth  of  architectural  beauty, 


148  GERMANY 

that  one  scarce  can  recall  another  city  which  can  vie  with 
it  in  this  direction.  Its  absolutely  mediaeval  streets,  nar- 
row, and  winding,  are  more  exquisite  in  an  harmonious 
suggestiveness  than  even  those  of  Nuremburg.  Gothic 
churches,  Renaissance  buildings  (mostly  of  an  ecclesias- 
tical character),  Rathaus,  arches,  gates,  fountains,  castle, 
all  are  in  the  most  perfect  state  of  preservation.  The 
most  fascinating  piece  of  ancient  beauty,  where  even  on 
the  rainiest  days  can  be  seen  artists  sketching  and  painting 
its  perfect  outlines,  is  the  old  gate  of  the  Altes  Rathaus, 
with  its  overhanging  lantern  ;  and  the  quaintest  vista,  that  is 
to  be  seen  on  looking  down  towards  the  Plonlein.  In  the 
church  of  St.  James  are  some  very  exquisite  specimens  of 
altar-carving  by  Tilman  Riemenschneider,  and  in  the 
church  of  the  little  village  of  Dettwang  is  also  another  fine 
example  of  this  same  artist's  work. 

We  cannot  pretend  to  go  satisfactorily  into  all  the  ven- 
erable towns  which  add  to  the  interest  and  glory  of  Batavia ; 
each  one  possessing  both  a  significant  historical  and  artistic 
interest,  which  must  be  sought  in  a  more  complete  and  in- 
dividual form.  Wurzburg  and  Bamberg  could  alone  fill 
a  book  with  the  vicissitudes  of  their  development,  height 
attained,  and  wealth  of  ecclesiastical  buildings.  The  latter 
is  built  on  a  chain  of  hills,  innumerable  churches  rising  up 
to  crown  their  summits  in  majestic  outline  ;  the  former  is 
situated  in  a  vine-clad,  verdant  valley  of  the  Main.  From 
741  down  to  1803  Wurzburg  was  governed  by  an  unbroken 
chain  of  Bishops.  The  first  was  Burkardus,  who  was  con- 
secrated by  St.  Boniface.  As  history  has  already  told  us, 
these  Bishops  attained  enormous  power,  and  in  1120  the 
Emperor  Frederick  created  them  Dukes  of  Franconia. 
The  sceptre  of  these  same  princes  often  including  the 


ROTHENBURG  149 

See  of  Bamberg.  In  1803  it  was  incorporated  with 
Bavaria. 

Then  there  are  the  towns  of  Ingolstadt  (now  a  mighty 
fortress,  famous  as  having  been  the  first  home  of  the  uni- 
versity founded  by  Ludwig  the  Rich  in  1472  and  besieged 
by  Gustavus  Adolphus  in  1632,  when  Tilly  lay  mortally 
wounded  within  the  city,  and  also  of  having  the  first  estab- 
lished Jesuit's  college  in  Germany). 

Wunsiedel  (the  birthplace  of  Jean  Paul  Richter,  and 
where  on  certain  dates,  every  few  years,  is  given  an  in- 
tensely interesting  festival  drama,  in  the  beautiful  forest  of 
the  Luisenberg,  in  honour  of  the  visit  paid  to  the  lovely 
little  town  by  the  much  beloved  Queen  Luise). 

Furth,  meaning  a  fort  (the  rival  manufacturing  town  of 
Nuremberg,  and  the  haven  which  sheltered  the  Jews  when 
they  were  driven  out  of  Nuremberg).  The  great  progres- 
sion of  the  town  is  due  to  their  wonderful  industry  and 
talents.  They  possess  a  Hebrew  printing  establishment,  a 
college,  separate  court  of  justice,  many  schools  and  a  syna- 
gogue. At  the  time  of  the  epoch  making  battle  between 
Gustavus  and  Wallenstein,  the  latter  made  this  town  his 
headquarters,  putting  up  at  the  Gruner  Baum,  in  the  street 
which  takes  its  name  from  this  noted  Swedish  Emperor. 
Carlstadt  (founded  by  Charlemagne,  and  the  birthplace  of 
the  reformer  Rodenstein,  the  instigator  of  puritanical 
iconoclasm,  1543).  Hanau  (the  home  of  the  Flemish  and 
Walloon  peasants  banished  from  the  Netherlands,  1597, tne 
birthplace  of  the  world-known  and  loved  brothers  Jacob 
and  Wilhelm  Grimm  1785-1863  and  1786-1859.  Near 
here  Napoleon  with  80,000  men  defeated  the  Bavarians  and 
Austrians  under  Marshal  Wrede  with  40,000  men  in 
1813).  Aschaffenburg  (belonging  from  982  to  the  bishops 


150  GERMANY 

of  Mayence,  and  ceded  to  Bavaria  in  1814.  In  the  old 
castle,  erected  in  1605,  is  a  most  remarkable  collection  of 
missals,  engravings,  prayer-books,  miniatures,  etc.,  and  also 
an  extremely  valuable  collection  of  paintings,  including 
good  examples  of  Ruysdael,  Rembrandt,  Rubens,  Teniers, 
Angelica  Kaufmann,  Giordano,  Cuyp,  and  Cranach.  Be- 
yond the  castle  gardens  stands  the  Pompeianum  erected  by 
the  indefatigable  Ludwigl.  in  1824  in  imitation  of  the  Cas- 
tor and  Pollux  at  Pompeii,  decorated  with  mosaic  and 
mural  paintings).  Aichach  (the  cradle  of  the  Wittelsbach 
house),  Kissingen,  which  is  the  most  frequented  water  cure 
place  in  Bavaria,  was  in  1866  the  scene  of  a  fierce  combat 
between  the  Prussians  and  the  Bavarians,  the  latter  under 
Prince  Karl  being  defeated.  In  1874  Goben  also  attempted 
to  assassinate  Bismarck  here).  Freising,  Donauworth, 
Lauingen  (the  birthplace  of  the  most  famous  man  of  his 
century,  Albertus  Magnus).  Voburg,  Fiissen,  etc.,  all 
towns  of  quaint  custom,  interest  and  value  to  the  kingdom 
to  which  so  many  of  them  only  latterly  have  definitely  be- 
longed. Then  the  many  lovely  country  districts,  such  as 
Berchtesgaden  which  Ibsen  so  loved,  Yarmisch,  Parten- 
kirchen,  etc. 


BAYREUTH 

GERTRUDE  NORMAN 

"  "1"  ITTLE  city  of  my  habitation,  to  which  I  belong 
on  this  side  of  the  grave  at  the  foot  of  the  fir- 

£  ^  capped  mountains,"  wrote  that  transcendental 
and  sweet  spirit,  Jean  Paul  Richter,  of  Bayreuth,  where  he 
spent  so  many  years  of  his  arduous  and  fruitful  life. 

This  "  Festival  Grail,"  which  is  a  modern  place  of  pil- 
grimage, is  situated  in  "  a  fascinating  circle  of  enchanting 
environment."  Long  stretches  of  tender  green  and  un- 
dulating meadows  surround  the  town;  then  in  the  fore- 
ground loom  the  deep  shadowed  pine  forests,  their  delicate 
spires  pricking  the  blue  of  the  heavens,  and  encircling  all 
are  the  picturesque  fir-capped  mountains.  It  is  a  spot  of 
infinite  peace,  of  calm  undistracting  joy,  a  place  in  which 
to  concentrate  the  dream,  and  draw  the  scattered  fancies 
into  a  glorious  artistic  bondage  ! 

"  The  word  Baireuth  means  a  piece  of  ground  reclaimed 
or  dug  up  by  the  Bavarians.  Reut  or  Reuth  being  still 
made  use  of  by  the  peasants  to  designate  a  spade  or  shovel, 
which  is  always  to  be  seen  hanging  from  the  plough. 
Baireuth  is  the  ancient  mode  of  spelling  and  Bayreuth  the 
modern." 

It  was  not  until  1881  that  English  or  Americans  heard 
much  of  Bayreuth,  nevertheless  it  is  fraught  with  a  sig- 
nificant historical  interest.  It  possesses  the  home  of  the 
present  ruling  house  of  Germany,  Hohenzollern-Branden- 


152  GERMANY 

burg;  also  the  principalities  of  Culmbach-Baireuth,  to- 
gether with  the  upper  portion  of  the  Burggraf  of  Nurem- 
berg, which  in  reality  includes  Nuremberg  itself  and 
Rothenburg.  Originally  it  was  a  principality  or  a  duchy 
like  Salzburg ;  appearing  in  the  old  deeds  as  a  Margravate, 
or  small  duchy,  its  ruler  styled  only  Margrave,  which  led 
to  much  ill-feeling,  discussion  and  bitter  jealousy. 

Wagner  had  visited  Bayreuth  early  in  his  youth,  and 
had  then  been  much  impressed  by  its  peaceful  beauty, 
which  had  also  so  appealed  to  the  gentle  soul  of  Richter. 
Wagner  revisited  Bayreuth  in  1871  and  was  so  enthusias- 
tically received  by  both,  municipality  and  administration, 
that  he  felt  assured  his  hopes  had  at  last  found  a  resting 
place  and  that  his  great  idea  would  meet  with  encourage- 
ment. Wahnfried,  that  "  home  of  peaceful  fancies,"  was 
built,  but  his  first  years  there  were  nevertheless  beset  with 
infinite  difficulties,  hardships  and  struggles.  Bayreuth  now 
is  a  sun-centre,  radiating  over  the  entire  civilized  globe,  the 
inspired  music  of  this  luminous  genius.  In  choosing 
Bayreuth  for  the  spot  on  which  to  found  his  great  Festival 
playhouse,  Wagner  fully  realized  that  concentration  on  the 
one  idea  was  the  surest  and  absolutely  necessary  foundation 
for  success.  People  go  to  Bayreuth  for  the  Wagner  Fes- 
tival, not  to  be  charmed  with  the  attractions  of  some 
mediaeval  town.  The  foundation  stone  for  the  theatre  was 
laid  on  May  22,  1872,  Wagner's  fifty-ninth  birthday. 
Among  other  notabilities,  both  Haeckel  and  Nietzsche 
were  present.  The  building  is  on  the  top  of  a  hill,  com- 
manding a  wide  and  sweeping  view.  It  was  made  from 
plans  drawn  solely  by  Wagner,  and  not  by  Semper,  who  de- 
signed the  plans  for  the  Munich  house.  Architecturally  it 
resembles  a  Grecian  Amphitheatre,  and  holds  1,450  people. 


BAYREUTH  153 

The  interior  is  severely  plain,  with  few  decorations,  no 
gilding  or  draperies,  and  no  disturbing,  glaring  chandelier. 
The  lights,  which  are  all  placed  on  the  tops  of  pillars,  are 
extinguished  immediately  the  performance  begins.  The 
orchestra  is  invisible,  buried  in  a  "  mystic  abyss."  Pil- 
grims journey  to  Bayreuth,  concentrated  on  the  one  idea  of 
becoming  absorbed  in  the  elemental  genius  of  a  solitary 
man.  It  is  probable  that  without  the  constant  enthusiasm, 
and  the  aid  of  Ludwig  II.,  Wagner's  dream  might  have 
been  still  longer  delayed ;  as  it  was,  he  called  the  latter 
"  the  fellow  creator  of  Bayreuth."  At  the  great  pro- 
duction of  Parsifal  in  1881  Ludwig  was  not  present.  The 
darkness  was  beginning  to  enwrap  him,  but  when  he 
heard  of  Wagner's  death,  he  was  sorely  stricken,  ex- 
periencing probably  the  greatest  loss  and  sincerest  affection 
of  his  life. 


WVRTEMBERG 

flNDLAY  MUIRHEAD 

WtTRTEMBERG  is  bounded  on  the  east  by 
Bavaria,  and  on  the  other  three  sides  by 
Baden,  with  the  exception  of  a  short  distance 
on  the  south,  where  it  touches  Hohenzollern  and  the  Lake 
of  Constance.  For  administrative  purposes  the  country  is 
divided  into  the  four  circles  (kreise)  of  the  Neckar  in  the 
north-west,  the  Jagst  in  the  north-east,  the  Black  Forest  in 
the  south-west,  and  the  Danube  in  the  south-east. 

Wurtemberg  forms  part  of  the  South  German  tableland, 
and  is  hilly  rather  than  mountainous.  In  fact  the  undulat- 
ing fertile  terraces  of  Upper  and  Lower  Swabia  may  be 
taken  as  the  characteristic  parts  of  this  agricultural  coun- 
try. The  usual  estimates  return  one-fourth  of  the  entire 
surface  as  "  plain,"  less  than  one-third  as  "  mountainous," 
and  nearly  one  half  as  "  hilly."  The  average  elevation 
above  the  sea-level  is  1,640  feet ;  the  lowest  point  is  Bot- 
tingen  (410  feet),  where  the  Neckar  quits  the  country  ;  the 
highest  is  the  Katzenkopf  (3,775  feet),  on  the  Hornisgrinde, 
on  the  western  border. 

The  chief  mountains  are  the  Black  Forest  on  the  west, 
the  Swabian  Jura  or  Rauhe  Alb,  stretching  across  the 
middle  of  the  country  from  south-west  to  north-east,  and 
the  Adelegg  Mountains  in  the  extreme  south-east,  adjoin- 
ing the  Algau  Alps  in  Bavaria.  The  Rauhe  Alb,  or  Alp, 
slopes  gradually  down  into  the  plateau  on  its  south  side,  but 


WtfRTEMBERG  155 

on  the  north  it  is  sometimes  rugged  and  steep,  and  has  its 
line  broken  by  isolated  projecting  hills.  The  highest  sum- 
mits are  in  the  southwest,  viz.,  the  Lemberg  (3,326  feet), 
Ober-Hohenberg  (3,312  feet),  and  Plettenberg  (3,293  feet). 
In  a  narrower  sense  the  name  Rauhe  Alb  is  reserved  for 
the  eastern  portion  only  of  the  Swabian  Jura,  lying  between 
Hohenzollern  and  Bavaria  in  the  narrowest  sense  of  it  all  it 
is  applied  to  a  single  group  near  Reutlingen.  Most  of  the 
isolated  summits  above  referred  to  (none  of  which  are  over 
2,630  feet)  project  from  this  eastern  section  ;  among  them 
are  the  hills  of  Hohenstaufen,  Teck,  Mossingen,  and 
Hohenzollern. 

The  Black  Forest  (Schwarzwald\  a  mountain  group,  or 
system,  deriving  its  name  from  the  dark  foliage  of  its  pine 
forests,  lies  partly  in  Wurtemberg  and  partly  in  Baden. 
Its  general  shape  is  that  of  a  triangle,  its  base  resting  on 
the  Rhine  between  the  Lake  of  Constance  and  Basel,  and 
its  apex  pointing  north. 

The  climate  of  the  Schwarzwald  is  severe,  but  healthy. 
The  forests  cease  at  4,250  feet,  and  are  succeeded  by  scanty 
grass  and  herbs.  On  many  of  the  summits  snow  lies  for 
ten  months  in  the  year,  yet  in  some  of  the  valleys  vines, 
almonds  and  chestnuts  ripen.  Wild  boars,  deer,  hares, 
foxes  and  various  kinds  of  game  are  found.  The  carriage- 
roads  follow  the  valleys ;  but  innumerable  foot-paths  lead 
in  all  directions  through  the  magnificent  woods.  The 
Black  Forest  Railway,  opened  in  1873,  ascends  the  pictur- 
esque valleys  of  the  Kinzig  and  Gutach  by  means  of 
bridges,  viaducts  and  tunnels,  often  of  the  boldest  construc- 
tion. 

To  the  south  of  the  Rauhe  Alb  the  plateau  of  Upper 
Swabia  stretches  to  the  Lake  of  Constance  and  eastwards 


156  GERMANY 

across  the  Iller  into  Bavaria.  Between  the  Alb  and  the 
Black  Forest  in  the  north-west  are  the  fertile  terraces  of 
Lower  Swabia,  continued  on  the  north-east  by  those  of 
Franconia. 

About  seventy  per  cent,  of  Wiirtemberg  belongs  to  the 
basin  of  the  Rhine  and  about  thirty  per  cent,  to  that  of  the 
Danube.  The  principal  river  is  the  Neckar,  which  flows 
northward  for  186  miles  through  the  country  to  join  the 
Rhine,  and  with  its  tributaries  drains  fifty-seven  per  cent, 
of  the  kingdom.  On  the  west  it  receives  the  Enz,  swelled 
by  the  Nagold,  and  on  the  east  are  the  Fils,  Rems,  Murr, 
Kocher  and  Jagst.  The  Danube  flows  from  east  to  west 
across  the  south  half  of  Wiirtemberg,  a  distance  of  sixty- 
five  miles,  a  small  section  of  which  is  in  Hohenzollern. 
Just  above  Ulm  it  is  joined  by  the  Iller,  which  forms  the 
boundary  between  Bavaria  and  Wiirtemberg  for  about 
thirty-five  miles.  The  Tauber  in  the  north-east  joins  the 
Main  j  the  Argen  and  Schussen  in  the  south  enter  the  Lake 
of  Constance.  The  lakes  of  Wiirtemberg,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  those  in  the  Black  Forest,  all  lie  south  of  the 
Danube.  About  one  fifth  of  the  Lake  of  Constance  is 
reckoned  to  belong  to  Wiirtemberg.  Mineral  springs  are 
abundant ;  the  most  famous  spa  is  Wildbad,  in  the  Black 
Forest. 

Until  the  close  of  the  Napoleonic  wars,  Wiirtemberg 
was  almost  exclusively  an  agricultural  and  bucolic  coun- 
try ;  but  since  that  period  it  has  turned  its  attention  to  trade 
and  manufactures,  and  perhaps  now  stands  second  only  to 
Saxony  among  the  German  states  in  commercial  and  indus- 
trial activity.  The  want  of  coal  is  naturally  a  serious  draw- 
back, but  it  is  to  a  certain  extent  compensated  by  the  abun- 
dant water-power.  The  textile  industry  is  carried  on  in 


WtfRTEMBERG  157 

most  of  its  branches.  Wool,  from  both  domestic  and 
foreign  sources,  is  woven  at  Esslingen,  Goppingen  and  other 
towns  in  Lower  Swabia;  cotton  is  manufactured  in  Gop- 
pingen and  Esslingen  and  linen  in  Upper  Swabia.  Lace- 
making  also  flourishes  in  the  last-named  district  as  a  rural 
house-industry.  The  silk  industry  of  Wurtemberg,  which 
employs  about  1,100  hands,  though  not  very  extensive  in 
itself,  is  the  most  important  silk  industry  in  Germany. 
Ravensburg  claims  to  have  possessed  the  earliest  paper-mill 
in  Germany ;  paper-making  is  still  important  in  that  town 
and  at  Heidenheim,  Heilbronn,  Goppingen  and  other  places 
in  Lower  Swabia. 

Wurtemberg  is  one  of  the  best  educated  countries  of 
Europe.  School  attendance  is  compulsory  on  children 
from  seven  to  fourteen  years  of  age,  and  young  people 
from  fourteen  to  eighteen  must  either  attend  the  schools 
on  Sunday  or  some  other  educational  establishment.  Every 
community  of  at  least  thirty  families  must  have  a  school. 
The  different  churches  attend  to  the  schools  of  their  own 
confession.  There  is  a  university  at  Tubingen  and  a  poly- 
technic school  at  Stuttgart.  Technical  schools  of  various 
kinds  are  established  in  many  of  the  towns,  in  addition  to  a 
thorough  equipment  of  gymnasia,  commercial  schools,  sem- 
inaries, etc.  The  conservatory  of  music  at  Stuttgart  enjoys 
a  high  reputation. 

Wurtemberg  is  a  constitutional  monarchy  and  a  member 
of  the  German  Empire  with  four  votes  in  the  federal 
council  and  seventeen  in  the  imperial  Diet.  The  consti- 
tution rests  on  a  law  of  1819,  amended  in  1868  and  1874. 
The  crown  is  hereditary,  and  conveys  the  simple  title  of 
King  of  Wurtemburg. 

The  highest  executive  is  in  the  hands  of  a  ministry  of  state 


158  GERMANY 

(Staatsministerium),  consisting  of  six  ministers  and  the  privy 
council,  the  members  of  which  are  nominated  by  the  king. 
There  are  ministers  of  justice,  war,  finance,  home  affairs, 
religion  and  education  and  foreign  affairs,  railways  and  the 
royal  household.  The  legal  system  is  framed  in  imitation 
of  that  of  the  German  Empire.  The  judges  of  the 
supreme  court  for  impeachment  of  ministers,  etc.,  named 
the  Staatsgerichtshofy  are  partly  elected  by  the  chambers  and 
partly  appointed  by  the  king.  The  country  is  divided  into 
four  administrative  "  circles,"  subdivided  into  sixty-four 
Oberamter^  each  of  which  is  under  an  Oberamtmann, 
assisted  by  an  Amtsversammlung  or  local  council.  At 
the  head  of  each  of  the  four  large  divisions  is  a  Reg- 
ierung. 

The  earliest  known  inhabitants  of  the  country  now 
called  Wiirtemberg  seem  to  have  been  Suevi.  The  Romans, 
who  appeared  first  about  15  B.  C.,  added  the  south  part  of 
the  land  to  the  province  of  Gaul  in  84  A.  D.,  and  defended 
their  positions  there  by  a  wall  or  rampart.  About  the 
beginning  of  the  Third  Century,  the  Alemanni  drove  the 
Romans  beyond  the  Rhine  and  the  Danube ;  but  they  in 
their  turn  were  conquered  by  the  Franks  under  Clovis  (496) 
and  the  land  was  divided  between  Rhenish  Franconia  and 
the  Duchy  of  Alemannia.  The  latter,  however,  disappears 
about  760,  and  its  territories  were  administered  for  the 
Frankish  monarchs  by  grafs^  or  counts,  until  they  were 
finally  absorbed  in  the  Duchy  of  Swabia.  The  last  Duke 
of  Swabia  died  in  1268,  and  a  large  share  of  his  power  and 
possessions  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  grafs  of  Wiirtemberg, 
whose  ancestral  castle  crowned  a  hill  between  Esslingen  and 
Cannstatt.  In  1870  this  kingdom  shared  in  the  national 
enthusiasm  which  swept  over  Germany  when  France  de- 


WCRTEMBERG  159 

clared  war;  and  its  troops  had  a  creditable  share  in  the 
memorable  campaign  of  1870-71.  Since  the  foundation  of 
the  present  German  Empire,  the  separate  history  of  Wur- 
temberg  has  been  of  almost  exclusively  local  interest. 


STUTTGART 

DR.  R.  ELBEN 

THE  situation  of  Stuttgart  is  one  of  the  most  beauti- 
ful in  Germany.  The  capital  of  Wiirtemberg  is 
encircled  by  pleasant  towns  and  villages,  fertile 
fields,  vine-clad  hills,  skirted  by  shady  forests  in  harmonious 
display.  The  city  itself  belongs  to  the  fairest  in  the 
German  Empire. 

Though  it  may  lack  the  romantic  adornment  of  ruined 
castles  crowning  its  hilltops,  yet  the  city  with  its  environs 
has  few  equals  for  charming  landscape  scenery,  luxurious 
vegetation  and  diversity  of  views,  as  it  lies  embedded  in  a 
recess  of  the  romantic  valley,  through  which  the  Neckar, 
winds  its  silvery  band.  The  gently  ascending  slopes  are 
cultivated  with  grape-vines  and  fruit-trees  and  dotted  over 
with  villas ;  the  verge  of  the  hills  and  mountains  is  crowned 
by  woods  in  nicely  undulating  lines.  The  hill-slopes  ex- 
tend on  several  sides  even  to  the  city  borders,  their  rich 
verdure  affording  pleasing  resting-place  to  the  eye  and  form- 
ing a  charming  background. 

The  commanding  points  of  view,  so  largely  taken  advan- 
tage of  and  beautified  by  the  Verschbnerungs  herein  (a  Society 
for  enhancing  the  natural  beauties  of  the  city  and  its  en- 
virons) present  a  surprising  variety,  especially  where  they 
afford  an  outlook  into  the  picturesque  valley  of  the  Neckar, 
a  perspective  into  the  fertile  Unterland  (the  lower  or  north- 
ern part  of  Wiirtemberg),  and  on  the  blue  summits  of  the 
Alb  rising  in  the  distance. 


STUTTGART  161 

As  far  back  as  1519,  Ulrich  von  Hutten  wrote:  "Ger- 
many possesses  hardly  any  finer  country  than  this  one.  The 
fields  are  excellent,  the  atmosphere  is  wonderfully  pure 
and  healthy  j  mountains,  meadows,  rivers,  springs,  forests, 
everything  delightful  j  the  wine  as  delicious  as  may  be 
expected  from  such  a  land."  About  two  hundred  years 
later,  Mr.  Burk  remarked  in  his  Directory  :  "  The  goodly 
city  of  Stuttgart  is  but  a  gem  set  in  a  precious  ring  "  ;  and 
quite  recently  J.  Klaiber  writes :  "  When  in  spring  the 
evening  sun  deepens  the  reddish  hue  of  our  hills  into  a 
purple  glow,  when  the  pure,  and  yet  so  softly  undulating 
outlines  of  our  hilltops  are  blended  with  the  mellow 
vapour;  or  again,  when  autumn  spreads  its  inexhaustible 
profusion  of  luxurious  blessings  over  this  valley,  over  these 
heights,  and  all  Nature  seems  to  smile  in  the  blissful  en- 
joyment of  an  easy  abundance,  one  may  hear  now  and  then 
the  bold  expression :  l  Well  may  this  land  remind  you 
of  the  landscapes  of  Italy  ! ' : 

The  city  is  regularly  built,  and,  being  divided  by  King 
Street  and  its  extensions  into  an  eastern  and  western 
part,  the  stranger  has  a  ready  means  of  orientation. 
With  the  exception  of  its  oldest  parts,  it  is  laid  out  into 
symmetrical  blocks,  bordered  by  broad  streets  with  conven- 
ient sidewalks,  hardly  matched  by  other  cities  in  Ger- 
many. It  abounds  in  magnificent  and  stately  edifices, 
erected  by  the  State,  the  City,  or  by  private  citizens; 
the  building  material,  a  red  and  a  greenish  sandstone,  is 
found  in  the  neighbouring  quarries.  The  freestone  masses 
and  elegant  facades,  displayed  even  in  smaller  private 
residences,  impart  to  the  modern  section  of  the  city  an 
aspect  of  an  imposing  nobility. 

Stuttgart,  capital  and  royal  residence  of  the  kingdom  of 


i62  GERMANY 

Wurtemberg,  forms,  according  to  the  political  division  of 
the  kingdom,  with  the  suburbs  of  Berg,  Heslach  and 
Gablenberg  under  the  name  of  Stadtdirectionsbezirk  Stutt- 
gart (City  Police  District)  one  of  the  four  Oberamter 
(counties)  of  the  kingdom,  and  one  of  the  seventeen 
counties  of  the  Neckarkreis  (circle).  A  considerable  num- 
ber of  neighbouring  villages  form  a  separate  district,  called 
Amtsoberamt  Stuttgart.  The  city  lies  in  the  approximate 
centre  of  the  kingdom,  and  is  the  converging  point  of  all 
railroads  and  stage  and  carriage  roads.  As  one  of  the  Sieben 
Guten  Stadte  (Seven  privileged  towns)  Stuttgart  has  her  own 
representative  in  the  Legislative  Assembly.  In  elections 
for  the  Reichstag  (Imperial  Diet)  the  city,  together  with  the 
country,  forms  the  first  Electoral  District. 

In  ancient  documents  the  name  of  Stutgarden  occurs  for 
the  first  time  in  1229  (Studgarden,  foaling-farm ;  hence  the 
coat-of-arms  of  the  city  is  a  mare  in  rearing  posture).  It 
was  at  that  time  in  the  possession  of  the  Counts  of 
Wurtemberg.  The  unsuccessful  siege  of  the  city  by  King 
Rodolph  of  Habsburg  in  1286,  during  which  he  destroyed 
seven  Burgs  (strongholds)  around  it,  proves  it  to  have  been 
strongly  fortified  by  walls. 

Count  Eberhard  der  Erlauchte  (the  Illustrious)  in  1321, 
transferred  hither  his  residence  from  the  Castle  of  Wirten- 
berg  (the  present  Rothenberg),  as  well  as  the  Prebendary  of 
Beutelsbach  in  the  Rems  valley,  as  this  site  offered  better 
protection,  a  healthy  wine-growing  location. 

It  became,  however,  the  permanent  residence  of  the 
Sovereigns  only  under  Count  Ulrich  the  Beloved  (1419-80), 
who  enlarged  and  beautified  the  city  considerably.  During 
the  reign  of  the  Dukes  and  in  the  early  years  of  the  king- 
dom, the  city  had  many  hardships  to  endure  :  from  1519-34, 


STUTTGART  163 

after  Duke  Ulrich's  expulsion,  it  was  in  the  hands  of  the 
Swabian  League  and  of  Austria ;  in  the  Thirty  Years'  War 
and  that  of  Schmalkalden,  it  was  occupied  successively  by 
the  troops  of  the  Emperor  and  those  of  General  Alva; 
by  the  French  during  the  predatory  excursions  under 
Louis  XIV.  in  1707  ;  the  Court  held  its  residence  at  Lud- 
wigsburg  from  1724-33;  and  from  1764-75,  it  was  tem- 
porarily abandoned  to  the  enemies  during  the  French  Revo- 
lutionary wars  of  1796,  1800  and  1801.  It  rose  to  its 
present  importance  only  in  the  reigns  of  Kings  Frederick 
(1797-1816),  William  (1816-64)  and  Charles  (since  1864). 

In  the  way  of  agriculture,  the  production  of  wine  and 
gardening  occupy  the  foremost  place.  The  vineyards 
around  Stuttgart  produce  about  7,000  barrels  of  wine. 
Good  and  cheap  wines,  splendid  fruits  and  vegetables  attest 
the  excellence  of  the  soil  and  climate,  as  well  as  the  indus- 
trious habits  of  the  people.  Flora's  and  Pomona's  chil- 
dren are  most  lovingly  cared  for,  and  a  glance  over  the 
broad  girdle  of  gardens,  skirting  the  borders  of  the  city, 
suggests  the  idea  that  Stuttgart  may  be  called  with  equal 
propriety — Garden  city  and  Vine  city.  Kings  William 
and  Charles  have  established  beautiful  and  effective  models 
for  the  flourishing  art  of  professional  and  ornamental 
gardening  in  the  villas  of  Rosenstein,  Wilhelma  and  Berg, 
also  in  the  flower-beds  of  the  Schlossplatz  and  the  Botanical 
Garden.  The  Stadtgarten  Society  and  the  Verscbmtrungs 
Verein  exert  also  a  suggestive  and  elevating  influence  on 
this  pleasing  branch  of  agricultural  economy. 

The  most  attractive  place  in  the  city  is  the  Schlossplatz, 
which  rivals  the  most  beautiful  city  squares  of  any  capital 
or  residence  in  Europe.  The  new  Residenzschloss,  or 
Royal  Palace,  was  begun  in  1746  and  completed  in  1807. 


164  GERMANY 

It  is  in  Renaissance  style,  consists  of  a  main  building  sur- 
mounted by  a  huge  gilded  crown  and  two  wings  at  right 
angles  and  contains  365  rooms.  The  splendid  Schlossplatz 
(Palace  Square)  is  decorated  with  avenues,  fancy  flower- 
beds, two  gorgeous  fountains,  showing  at  their  bases  four 
genii  of  Wiirtemberg  rivers,  and  a  large  Music  Kiosk.  In 
the  centre  of  this  square  the  Jubilaums  S'dule  (Jubilee 
column)  thirty  yards  high,  was  erected  in  1841,  in  com- 
memoration of  the  Twenty-fifth  anniversary  of  King 
William's  glorious  reign  j  on  its  top  stands  the  statue  of 
Concordia. 

The  steep  mountain-slope,  east  of  the  Palace,  with  its 
play  of  reddish  hues  from  the  sandstone  hills  clad  with 
vineyards  and  dotted  with  villas,  greatly  enhances  the 
beauty  of  the  Schlossplatz. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  Planie  (an  avenue  of  chestnut 
trees  skirting  the  southern  side  of  the  Schlossplatz),  rises 
like  a  citadel,  the  Old  Castle  with  round  towers  on  three 
corners.  It  is  built  on  the  site  of  the  ancient  castle,  which 
was  the  residence  of  the  Counts  of  Wiirtemberg  from  the 
Fourteenth  Century.  At  present  it  contains  lodgings  and 
offices  of  the  court  functionaries  and  the  royal  household. 


THE  BLACK  FOREST 

JOHN  STOUGHTON 

EVEN  in  the  great  forest  age,  the  Hercynia  Sylva 
was  renowned.  It  reached  from  Swabia  to  Saxony, 
touched  the  Rhine,  and  ran  along  the  banks  of  the 
Danube  as  far  as  Transylvania.  Caesar  spent  nine  days  in 
crossing  a  part  of  it,  and  it  took  more  than  eight  weeks  to 
traverse  it  from  end  to  end  in  its  longest  direction.  The 
warrior  and  historian  gives  an  account  of  its  character,  and 
of  its  wild  beasts,  in  the  sixth  book  of  his  Gallic  Wars. 
In  the  Hercynia  Sylva  were  included,  on  the  north,  a  re- 
gion called  the  Marciana  Sylva,  and,  on  the  south,  the 
Mons  Abnoba ;  the  former  ran  up  near  the  countries  now 
known  as  Thuringia  and  the  Harz — the  latter  enfolded  in  the 
sources  of  the  River  Danube.  Of  the  vast  sweep  of  these 
rather  indefinite  boundaries  some  idea  may  be  formed  by  a 
glance  at  the  modern  map  of  Europe ;  roughly  they  may 
be  said  to  correspond  with  the  present  Grand  Duchy  of 
Baden  and  that  district  or  cycle  of  the  Kingdom  of  Wur- 
temberg  which  bears  the  name  of  the  Black  Forest.  The 
old  Marciana  Sylva  and  the  Mons  Abnoba  are  not  identical 
with  the  German  Schwarzwald ;  but  they  included  this 
large  region  of  wooded  hills,  bounded  by  the  Rhine  on  the 
west  and  south,  and  by  the  Neckar  and  Swabia  to  the  north 
and  east.  The  Schwarzwald^  according  to  the  "  Imperial 
Gazetteer,"  is  150  miles  long,  and,  in  some  part,  forty-five 
miles  broad.  Towards  the  north  the  mountain  chain  rapidly 


166  GERMANY 

subsides,  and  some  geographers  mark  it  as  terminating  near 
Neuenburg  and  Pforzheim.  The  north  division  is  called 
the  Lower  Sckwarzwald,  the  south  portion  the  Higher. 
The  culminating  point  is  the  Feldberg,  4,800  feet  high. 
The  whole  of  the  Schivarzwald  is  now  encompassed,  and 
the  south  is  penetrated  by  a  railway. 

At  the  remote  period  just  noticed — the  age  of  forests — it 
was  scarcely  accessible,  and  only  a  few  daring  spirits  at- 
tempted to  explore  its  dark  depths.  The  sombre  hue  of  its 
wide-spreading  woods  has  given  it  its  modern  name,  and  it 
seems  to  have  suggested  images  of  terror,  and  inspired 
emotions  of  fear,  in  the  minds  of  the  roving  tribes  who 
peopled  the  north  and  eastern  sides.  They  looked  upon  it, 
however,  as  a  natural  defence  against  the  aggressions  of 
the  Roman  Empire,  which  made  inroads  upon  Germany, 
and  they  rejoiced  in  the  difficulties  presented  by  the  black 
chain  of  hills  to  the  march  of  conquering  legions.  For  a 
long  period  the  forests  had  few  or  no  inhabitants,  but  peo- 
ple wandered  or  settled  on  its  skirts,  and  then  gradually 
cleared  their  way  into  the  interior,  seeking  in  the  valleys 
pasturage  for  their  cattle,  cutting  down  from  the  hills  ma- 
terials for  their  habitations.  Ethnologists  think  that  they 
can  discover  in  the  present  inhabitants  indications  of  phys- 
ical and  mental  differences  which  they  ascribe  to  varieties 
of  race  ;  and  hence  they  hazard  a  theory  of  distinct  tribes 
having  here  come  together,  some  of  Celtic,  others  of  Teu- 
tonic origin.  Be  that  as  it  may,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
at  an  early  date,  however  the  Germans  might  look  on  the 
Schwarzwald  as  a  bulwark  of  protection,  the  Romans  made 
their  way  into  the  neighbourhood,  laying  down  roads  and 
erecting  forts  in  the  Hercynian  Forest,  according  to  their 
established  policy.  The  remains  of  a  Roman  settlement, 


THE  BLACK  FOREST  167 

it  is  said,  are  to  be  seen  near  Hufingen,  a  station  on  the 
Black  Forest  Railway,  not  far  from  Donaueschingen, 
where,  in  an  interesting  museum,  some  Roman  antiquities 
are  preserved.  Up  in  the  Forest,  about  Unter  Kirnach, 
on  the  same  line,  near  Villingen,  an  ancient  roadway  has 
been  traced,  marked  by  wheel-ruts,  pronounced  to  be  a 
Roman  road  connecting  Adarh  Flavii  (Rottweil)  and  other 
places  with  the  Rhine  Valley.  At  Haslach,  also  on  the 
Black  Forest  Railway,  we  are  told  there  are  Roman 
remains. 

The  best  known  of  such  relics  are  at  Baden-Baden. 
The  vaults  of  the  masonry  enclosing  the  Ursprung,  the  prin- 
cipal of  the  hottest  mineral  springs,  is  of  Roman  construc- 
tion j  and  fragments  of  Roman  sculpture,  dug  up  in  the  vi- 
cinity, have  been  placed  in  the  building  over  the  fountain  ; 
among  them  are  votive  tables  and  altars  to  Neptune, 
Mercury,  and  Juno.  Roman  vapour  baths  seem  to  have 
existed  where  the  Neue  Schtoss  now  stands,  for  remains  are 
shown  in  the  subterranean  parts  of  that  interesting  edifice, 
which  plainly  point  to  Roman  times.  The  district 
watered  by  the  Oos,  which  gives  a  name  to  the  branch 
line  from  the  Rhine  Valley  to  Baden,  was  partially  subju- 
gated by  Drusus  Germanicus,  and  then  more  fully  con- 
quered by  the  Emperor  Trajan.  A  Roman  colony,  named 
Civitas  Aquemh,  occupied  the  site  of  the  fashionable  modern 
watering-place.  The  hot  springs  were  then  celebrated; 
and  Caracalla  gave  Roman  freedom  to  the  town,  whence  it 
became  known  as  Civitas  Aurelia  Aquensis.  Baden-Baden 
is  the  chief  centre  for  excursions  in  the  Lower  Schwarz- 
wald)  and  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  principal  town  in  that 
part ;  and  it  would  appear  that  this  pre-eminence  pertained 
to  it  of  old,  and  clung  to  it  during  the  ages  of  confusion 


168  GERMANY 

which  followed  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire.  For  when 
the  Alemanni,  who  were  the  original  inhabitants  of  the 
neighbourhood,  and  were  subjected  by  the  Romans,  fell 
under  the  dominion  of  the  Franks,  the  new  masters  of 
Gaul,  Baden-Baden  having  accepted  the  Christian  re- 
ligion, made,  under  its  Duke  Gottfried,  repeated  attempts 
to  establish  independence,  but  in  vain,  and  the  dukedom 
was  abolished  in  the  Eighth  Century  by  Pepin  the  Little. 
But,  in  the  Eleventh  Century,  a  Duke  Berthold,  a  reputed 
descendant  of  the  Alemannian  Gottfried,  built  a  castle  in 
the  Breisgau,  and  founded  the  line  of  the  Zahringen 
princes,  one  of  whom,  in  the  Twelfth  Century,  took  the 
title  of  Margrave  of  Baden,  and  was  the  ancestor  of  the 
illustrious  house  which  still  reigns  over  the  Grand  Duchy. 
The  history  of  the  country  is  dim  and  indistinct  during 
the  mediaeval  period.  The  Germans  have  a  saying,  when 
a  number  of  particulars  touching  a  subject  perplex  the 
mind,  that  "  you  cannot  see  the  wood  for  the  trees." 
Certainly  it  is  not  on  that  account  that  we  are  unable  to 
discern  the  historical  line  which  runs  through  the 
Schwarzwald  of  the  Dark  Ages.  There  are  scarcely  any 
trees  to  be  seen.  The  wood  is  lost  in  dense  clouds, 
such  as,  to  the  disappointment  and  mortification  of  the 
Baden  visitor,  sometimes  envelop  and  conceal  the  scenery 
all  around  the  castle.  Legends,  it  is  true,  float  before  the 
imagination.  Like  the  images  seen  on  the  face  of  the 
Brocken  mists — shadows  of  forms  cast  by  spectators — 
stories  are  told  in  prose  and  verse  of  ancient  heroes,  and 
supernatural  beings  who  lived  mysterious  lives.  In  the 
very  indifferent  frescoes  painted  on  the  walls  of  the 
Baden  Trinkhalle,  under  the  long  and  stately  colonnade, 
some  of  these  legends  are  embodied  in  form  and  colour. 


THE  BLACK  FOREST  169 

There  is  the  Kellerbild,  which  commemorates  a  phantom 
maid  who  haunted  the  spot  so  named — two  hours'  dis- 
tance from  Baden — and  fascinated  a  wanderer,  who,  after 
thrice  meeting  her,  in  an  ecstasy  of  love,  threw  himself 
into  her  arms,  only  to  perish  in  her  embrace.  There, 
too,  is  painted  the  Mummehee,  a  rocky  basin  on  the  road 
from  Achern  to  Allerheiligen,  where  the  Undines,  or 
Lake  Maidens,  dwelt  in  crystal  palaces,  amidst  gardens 
of  coral,  and,  ascending  at  night,  danced  to  sweet  music 
in  the  forest  dells,  and  then  vanished  at  cock-crow. 
There  also  may  be  seen  a  picture  of  the  Teufeh  Kanzel, 
a  place  six  miles  from  Baden,  not  far  from  Gernsbach, 
where  the  devil  is  reported  to  have  preached  j  while,  near 
at  hand,  stood  the  Engels  Kanzel^  where  an  angel  of  light 
proclaimed  the  truth,  and  destroyed  the  work  of  the  evil 
one.  In  the  room  of  history,  such  dreams  gather  round 
some  of  the  woods  and  waters  of  the  Schwarzwald ;  and 
but  little  can  be  discerned  in  the  shape  of  solid  fact  by 
the  student  who  strives  to  penetrate  into  the  condition  of 
the  region  ten  centuries  ago. 

Some  faint  rays  of  actual  truth  shoot  athwart  the  dark 
vista  as  we  travel  up  and  down  this  romantic  realm,  for 
the  ruins  of  abbeys  meet  us  here  and  there ;  and  castles, 
or  the  remains  of  them,  adorn  some  of  the  most  pic- 
turesque landscapes. 

The  missionary  labours  of  Boniface  form  an  interest- 
ing chapter  in  German  ecclesiastical  annals,  but  the 
scenes  amidst  which  those  labours  were  carried  on  lay 
.  to  the  north  of  the  territory  now  under  consideration ; 
through  the  influence  of  other  like-minded  evangelists, 
however,  Christianity,  as  it  was  then  understood,  made 
its  way  into  the  Black  Forest.  It  was  preached  to  the 


170  GERMANY 

scattered  inhabitants  ;  and  at  a  time  when  monastic  hab- 
its were  in  the  ascendancy,  brethren  of  the  cowl  erected 
convents  in  several  nooks  and  corners  of  the  Schwarzwald^ 
and  by  their  industry  brought  surrounding  lands  into  culti- 
vation, while  they  instructed  the  peasantry  in  some  of  the 
elements  of  the  Christian  faith. 

Two  miles  from  Baden-Baden,  at  the  end  of  a  charm- 
ing avenue  of  trees,  lies  Lichtenthal,  a  bright  green  valley, 
famous  for  a  monastery  built  by  the  Margraves  of  Baden 
to  shelter  one  of  the  religious  brotherhoods.  On  the  way 
thence  to  Wildbad,  through  Gernsbach,  one  may  pass 
through  Herrenalb,  a  village  grouped  around  buildings 
which  belonged  to  a  celebrated  abbey,  and  tombstones  of 
the  wicked  chiefs  who  presided  over  the  establishment 
are  found  in  the  churchyard.  Hirshau  is  another  in  the 
same  portion  of  the  Lower  Scbwarzwald^  which  can  boast 
of  the  ruins  of  a  convent  dedicated  to  St.  Peter.  But  of 
all  the  ecclesiastical  ruins  which  we  have  seen  in  the 
Black  Forest,  there  are  none  so  remarkable  as  those  of 
Allerheiligen,  within  a  pleasant  drive  from  Achern  or  the 
Baden  Railway.  We  might  also  notice  the  church  at 
Peterzell,  built  by  the  monks  of  Reichenau,  and  the  great 
Benedictine  Abbey  at  St.  Georgen,  both  which  places 
border  the  line  which  runs  from  Offenburg  to  Singen. 
St.  Blasen,  on  the  road  from  Freiburg  to  Albruck,  is 
another  example.  Such  buildings,  at  different  dates  of  the 
middle  ages,  denote  the  advance,  step  by  step,  of  relig- 
ion and  civilization  in  regions  once  inhospitable,  and 
scarcely  ever  trodden  before  by  the  feet  of  men.  These 
buildings  became  centres  of  population,  and  villages  sprang 
up  around  the  abbey  walls. 

The  age  of  abbeys  was  also  an  age  of  cast\es ;  they  are 


THE  BLACK  FOREST  171 

found,  in  preservation  or  in  ruins,  in  several  parts  of  the 
Baden  and  Wiirtemberg  dominions,  within  the  Forest 
circles.  The  visitor  at  Baden-Baden  is  almost  sure  to 
take  a  drive  to  Scbloss  Eberstein,  which  crowns  a  rocky 
hill  commanding  a  most  delightful  view  of  the  pic- 
turesque valley  of  the  Murg.  The  figure  of  a  wild  boar, 
from  which  the  castle  takes  its  name,  is  conspicuous  on 
the  gateway;  and  entering  the  outer  courtyard,  you  can 
go  round  to  an  inner  one,  which  recently  restored,  gives 
a  good  idea  of  the  baronial  homes  and  haunts  of  the 
wild  days,  images  of  which  history  seeks  to  recover  from 
oblivion.  There  are  not  far  off  the  ruins  of  another 
castle,  that  of  Alt  Eberstein^  originally  a  Roman  watch- 
tower.  In  connection  with  it  is  told  a  story  to  the  effect 
that  Otto  I.,  wishing  to  reduce  it  to  his  sway,  invited 
the  count  who  possessed  it  to  a  tournament  at  Spires, 
with  a  view  to  seize  it  during  his  absence.  But  the 
emperor's  daughter  fell  in  love  with  the  count,  and  dis- 
closed the  plot,  whereupon  he  hastened  home  and  saved 
his  domain,  and  the  matter  ended,  of  course,  in  the  mar- 
riage of  the  lovers. 

The  Alte  Schloss  is  one  of  the  chief  resorts  of  Baden 
visitors,  and  there  one  sees  the  earliest  residence  of  the 
reigning  family.  Its  situation,  perched  on  a  rock  over- 
looking the  valleys  of  the  Oos  and  the  Rhine,  reminds  us 
how  the  chieftains  of  the  Middle  Ages  sought  security  by 
climbing  up  difficult  heights.  Not  to  gaze  on  beautiful 
prospects,  but  to  bar  their  gates  and  arm  their  walls  against 
intruding  foes,  did  these  old  warriors  choose  the  place  of 
their  abode.  And  as  the  tourist  ascends  to  the  top  of  the 
remaining  towers,  and  beholds  with  delight  villages,  spires, 
and  water-mills,  he  is  reminded  by  the  force  of  contrast 


172  GERMANY 

how  different  was  the  aspect  of  the  country  when  in  the 
Middle  Ages  the  ladies  of  the  family  in  hours  of  peace 
leaned  over  those  battlements. 

The  Neue  Schloss  was  not  erected  until  the  latter  part 
of  the  Fifteenth  Century  when  less  savage  times  released 
noble  families  from  the  necessity  of  building  their  nests 
among  the  rocks. 

A  few  large  towns  arose  on  the  edges  of  the  Black  Forest 
in  mediaeval  times.  Freiburg  is  the  principal,  founded  by 
the  Duke  of  Zahringen  in  1118,  then  handed  over  to  the 
Counts  of  Urach,  and  next  transferred  to  the  House  of 
Hapsburg.  In  1386  it  became  a  free  town — hence  its 
present  name.  In  1490  it  was  constituted  an  imperial  city, 
and  here  a  celebrated  Diet  was  held  in  1499,  after  which 
the  Treaty  of  Basle  was  signed,  recognizing  the  independ- 
ence of  Switzerland.  Its  ancient  cathedral  is  a  magnificent 
structure,  and  its  archbishop  is  the  ecclesiastical  superior 
of  the  Hohenzollern  principality  together  with  the  Grand 
Duchy  of  Baden.  No  other  place  of  equal  importance 
belongs  to  the  Black  Forest  district.  Heilbronn  lies  too 

O 

far  north  to  come  within  its  confines.  Baden-Baden  is  not 
to  be  compared  with  it  in  extent  and  architecture ;  and 
Donaueschingen,  first  heard  of  in  the  Thirteenth  Century, 
though  an  interesting,  is  but  a  small  and  unimportant  town. 
The  fact  is  that  in  the  Black  Forest  town  life  in  the 
Middle  Ages  gained  but  little  upon  country  life.  Whilst 
great  old  cities  were  flourishing  elsewhere  and  ambitious 
towns  were  springing  up  round  about  them,  the  Scbwarz- 
wald  remained  with  a  scattered  population  of  villages, 
dotted  over  the  verdant  valleys,  in  some  cases  growing  up 
into  small  towns,  as  in  Gernsbach,  on  the  River  Murg, 
where  a  handsome  old  building  of  the  Sixteenth  Century, 


THE  BLACK  FOREST  173 

used  as  a  town  house,  indicates  the  growth  there  of 
municipal  aspirations  at  that  period. 

Beyond  to  the  south,  ten  miles  from  Gernsbach  is  For- 
bach,  a  flourishing  village  where  cattle  are  bred  and  wood 
is  collected — one  of  the  finest  points  in  the  Murgthal ;  and 
still  farther  on  are  almost  interminable  forests  of  virgin  fir, 
and  mountain  streams  are  dammed  up  that  they  may  float 
down  the  hewn  timber  to  the  Murg  as  it  flows  northward 
to  the  Rhine.  The  Schloss  Eberstein  overlooks  Gernsbach 
and  the  Murg  valley,  and  the  eye  following  the  winding 
stream  catches  here  and  there  glimpses  of  cosy  villages 
dotting  the  banks,  whilst  to  the  south  the  waters  are  seen 
flowing  on  to  an  immense  distance,  inspiring  a  wish  to  ex- 
plore what  lies  beyond. 

All  this  part  of  the  Black  Forest  abounds  in  pine  wood. 
The  pine  is  the  pinus  pinacea,  very  different  from  the  Scotch 
fir.  It  grows  to  an  enormous  height,  often  200  feet,  has  a 
silvery  stem,  round,  broad,  straight,  and  robust,  like  "  the 
mast  of  some  tall  ammiral,"  and  does  not  put  forth  branches 
until  near  the  top,  where  it  spreads  out  in  a  dark-green 
crown,  decked  with  numerous  cones.  To  stand  at  the  foot 
of  one  of  these  lofty  pines  and  to  look  upwards,  has  a 
strange  effect  on  the  sight  and  the  imagination,  especially 
if  at  the  moment  the  ear  is  filled  with  the  murmurings  of  an 
adjoining  brook  and  the  music  of  the  wind  through  the 
boughs  overhead.  The  whole  is  calculated  to  affect  the 
mind  with  "  a  sense  of  sublimity,"  and  it  recalls  the 
language  of  Sir  Walter  Scott :  "  All  nature  seems  united  in 
offering  that  solemn  praise,  in  which  trembling  is  mixed 
with  joy,  as  she  addresses  her  Maker." 

Leaving  Baden-Baden  and  its  vicinity,  we  now  proceed 
by  rail  to  Freiburg,  in  the  Breisgau.  It  has  a  history  run- 


174  GERMANY 

ning  back  into  the  Middle  Ages,  relating  to  the  Dukes  of 
Zahringen,  Counts  of  Urach,  and  the  Emperor  Max  ;  the 
War  of  the  Peasants  and  the  Thirty  Years'  War;  and  it 
has  a  cathedral  commenced  in  1122,  under  whose  noble 
Gothic  roof  it  is  no  small  privilege  to  stand  and  gaze  on 
nave  and  choir  columns  and  arches,  stained  glass  and  sculp- 
tured monuments.  The  interior  and  exterior  are  worthy  of 
each  other.  The  octagonal  tower  is  four  hundred  feet 
high,  supporting  an  open-work  spire  of  ingenious  work- 
manship, and  the  numerous  chapels  and  baptistry  add  im- 
mensely to  the  interest  and  grandeur  of  the  edifice.  The 
city  contains  churches  and  other  public  buildings  as  well  as 
fountains  and  domestic  houses  of  a  picturesque  character; 
and  these  objects  with  charming  walks  in  the  environs, 
may  well  detain  the  tourist  two  or  three  days.  But  we 
now  notice  Freiburg,  because  it  lies  in  the  western  out- 
skirts of  the  Black  Forest,  and  affords  a  good  opening  into 
a  line  of  road  which  takes  us  through  some  of  its  best 
southern  districts.  Many  years  ago  we  drove  out  of  the 
city  one  sunny  morning  on  a  journey  down  to  Albruck  on 
the  Rhine,  comprising  some  of  the  most  famous  views  in 
that  direction. 

In  this  journey  we  missed  the  Feldburg.  The  Feldburg 
is  the  highest  mountain  in  the  Black  Forest,  being  5,000 
feet  high.  When  the  weather  is  clear  the  view  of  the  Alps, 
the  Jura  and  the  Vosges  in  the  distance,  and  the  mountains 
of  the  Black  Forest  all  around,  is  very  magnificent.  On 
the  summit  of  the  mountain  is  a  tower  twenty-eight  feet 
high,  called  the  Friedrich  Louisen  Thurm,  erected  in 
honour  of  the  betrothal  of  the  Grand  Duke  Frederick  of 
Baden  to  the  Princess  Louisa  of  Prussia. 

The  Seebach  (4,760  feet)  is  a  place  with  seats,  half  an 


THE  BLACK  FOREST  175 

hour's  walk  from  the  summit.  The  view  hence  is  very 
picturesque.  The  Feldbergsee,  encircled  by  mountain  and 
forest,  is  seen  below  ;  beyond  that  Barenthal,  the  Seebach 
River,  and  part  of  the  Titi  See,  with  the  mountains  of 
Swabia  and  the  Hohgau  in  the  distance. 

The  Feldbergsee  is  a  wierd-looking  lake  in  the  very 
heart  of  the  Feldberg,  and,  like  the  mountain  itself,  the 
scene  of  strange  legends. 

We  did  not  ascend  the  Hochenschwand,  which  is  said  to 
command  a  view  unsurpassed  in  the  whole  of  the  Black 
Forest.  It  comprises  an  unbroken  view  of  the  Alps  from 
the  Bavarian  Tyrol  to  Mont  Blanc. 

We  have  now  to  describe  another  route,  the  easiest  and 
least  expensive  of  all,  whilst  it  surpasses  the  rest  in  variety, 
novelty  and  grandeur.  We  allude  to  the  Black  Forest 
Railway,  which  can  be  reached  from  Schaffhausen  by  a 
branch  running  to  Singen.  From  Singen  you  go  north- 
wards to  Immendingen,  the  junction  of  the  Black  Forest 
Railway  with  the  Tuttlingen-Rottweil  Stuttgart  line,  by 
which  you  can  travel  along  the  Upper  Danube  valley  and 
visit  Sigmaringen,  a  most  interesting  place,  with  a  pictur- 
esque castle,  full  of  works  of  art  and  other  curiosities. 
Here  you  are  within  the  Black  Forest  circle  of  the  king- 
dom of  Wurtemburg,  and  can  diverge  right  and  left  ex- 
ploring valleys  and  climbing  hills,  and  watching  the  activi- 
ties of  the  industrial  population.  From  Immendingen 
junction  the  rail  runs  in  a  western  direction  across  a  verdant 
village  to  Donaueschingen,  where  we  must  pause  for  a 
moment.  It  is  a  quiet  little  town  of  no  architectural  pre- 
tensions, but  has  a  palace  belonging  to  the  Princes  of 
Furstenberg,  situated  on  the  edge  of  a  fine  park  and  exten- 
sive gardens.  Here  is  a  spring  of  crystal  water,  bubbling 


176  GERMANY 

up  within  a  stone  basin,  adorned  with  statuary ;  and  this 
spring  is  pointed  out  as  the  source  of  the  mighty  River 
Danube — in  German  Donau  whence  the  town  takes  its 
name.  It  is,  however,  but  one  of  the  sources ;  and  it 
almost  immediately  falls  into  the  Brigach,  which,  united 
with  the  Brege,  rolls  on  till  the  stream  swells  into  a  mighty 
flood. 

Taking  to  the  rail  again,  we  reach  Villingen,  a  walled 
town  with  a  double-towered  church  and  a  curious  Rath- 
haus.  Thence  to  St.  Georgen  the  road  ascends,  and  at 
Sommerau  attains  its  greatest  altitude  2,800  feet,  being  the 
summit  of  the  watershed  between  the  Danube  and  the 
Rhine.  It  is  hereabouts  that  the  glorious  scenery  begins  as 
the  tourist  moves  north-west. 

Hence  the  Black  Forest  mountains  extend  in  a  continued 
chain,  north  by  west,  till  they  are  lost  on  the  plain  round 
Carlsruhe  and  the  neighbouring  hills  of  the  Neckar.  They 
belong  to  a  geological  system  the  same  as  the  Vosges,  the 
other  side  of  the  Rhine.  Granite  and  gneiss  form  the 
substratum,  over  which  rise  porphyry  beds  and  red  sand- 
stone formations.  There  is  work  for  the  scientific  travel- 
ler amidst  these  wonders  of  nature ;  and  to  the  unscientific, 
rounded  heights,  everlasting  breadths  of  forests,  sublime 
gorges,  dislocated  rocks,  and  winding  valleys,  present  a 
charming  succession  of  objects,  bewildering  from  their 
variety  and  rapid  succession,  as  he  is  whirled  along  this 
stupendous  work  of  engineering  skill.  The  line  goes  zig- 
zag, up  and  down,  now  shooting  through  a  tunnel,  and 
then  dashing  along  the  side  of  a  precipice.  The  direction 
is  mysterious,  and  puzzles  one  even  after  repeated  journeys. 
It  advances,  returns,  doubles,  one  minute  winding  round, 
and  the  next  climbing  over  the  picturesque  hills.  On  one 


THE  BLACK  FOREST  177 

side  you  look  up  a  pine-crowned  stony  wall ;  on  the  other 
look  down  into  green  valleys  and  bright  streams,  meadows 
and  mills,  villages  and  scattered  cottages.  Triberg  is  a 
most  tempting  spot,  a  few  miles  distant  from  Sommerau. 

From  Triberg  the  line  enters  the  valley  of  the  Nieder- 
wasser,  of  a  similar  character  to  the  rest  as  regards  the 
main  features.  The  charming  scenery  continues  on  to 
Hornberg,  whence  excursions  can  be  made  to  the  Berneck- 
thal.  Hornberg  is  situated  much  lower  down,  and  there 
the  valley  of  Gutach  is  entered,  where,  in  addition  to  ro- 
mantic views  of  nature,  you  have  curious  costumes  to  look 
at :  rose-trimmed  straw  hats,  a  cap  of  black  tulle,  a  blue  or 
scarlet  kerchief,  a  red-lined  jacket,  a  blue  bodice,  black  pet- 
ticoat and  blue  stockings.  The  men's  black  coats  often 
have  red  linings.  Hausach,  in  the  valley  of  Kinzig,  is  the 
next  station,  in  the  midst  of  orchards,  woodlands,  and 
meadows,  and  from  this  point  a  road  leads  to  the  famous 
cluster  of  baths,  known  as  the  Knebis  Baths,  from  the  pass 
of  that  name,  which  leads  from  Allerherleigen  down  to  the 
south  point  of  the  Schwarzwald.  The  baths  are  four  in 
number  and  are  much  frequented,  but  that  at  Rippoldsau, 
two  hours'  drive  from  Hausach,  carries  the  palm. 

The  rapid  survey  to  which  we  are  limited  by  no  means 
exhausts  the  resources  of  the  Schwarzwald.  We  have  kept 
to  routes  visited  by  ourselves.  But  there  are  others  with 
which  we  are  personally  unacquainted.  Wildbad  is  a  bath- 
ing-place of  much  resort;  it  is  situated  in  the  bosom  of 
dense  woods,  and  the  mineral  springs  have  been  much  ex- 
tolled by  physicians  of  authority.  From  Wildbad,  the  pil- 
grim in  search  of  the  picturesque  may  find  abundant  grati- 
fication by  ascending  the  Enz  valley  to  Enzklosterle, 
amongst  the  mountains,  and  by  that  means  reach  the 


178  GERMANY 

Murgthal;  and  then  descending  to  Forbach  he  can  make 
his  way  to  Herrenwiese,  and  onwards  to  Buhl  on  the 
Baden-Baden  railway.  Herrenwiese  is  in  the  midst  of  a 
grouse-shooting  district,  and  stands  on  a  plain  encircled  by 
high  mountains. 

Badenweiier,  a  short  distance  from  Mulheim  on  the 
Baden  and  Basle  line,  is  a  picturesque  little  watering-place 
with  about  500  permanent  inhabitants,  and  attracting  about 
3,000  bathers  annually.  It  is  situated  on  one  of  the  spurs 
of  the  Black  Forest,  running  down  to  the  valley  of  the 
Rhine,  1,400  feet  above  the  sea  level,  and  nearly  750  feet 
above  the  Rhine.  The  waters  of  Badenweiier  are  used 
externally  and  internally  j  and  the  goat's  milk  and  whey 
cures  are  largely  used  as  adjuncts.  Hotels  and  pensions 
for  the  accommodation  of  visitors  are  plentiful.  In  the 
Cursaal  is  a  fine  Trinkhalle,  besides  a  ball-room,  concert- 
room,  reading-room,  etc.  The  well  was  dug  in  1685. 
The  present  building  was  erected  in  1853,  a^ter  designs  by 
Eisenlohr. 


THE  RHINE 

VICTOR  HUGO 

Born  where  blooms  the  Alpine  rose, 

Cradled  in  the  Boden  See  — 
Forth  the  infant  river  flows, 

Leaping  on  in  childish  glee. 
Coming  to  a  riper  age, 

He  crowns  his  rocky  cup  with  wine, 
And  makes  a  gallant  pilgrimage 

To  many  a  ruined  tower  and  shrine. 

YES,  the  Rhine  is  a  noble  river — feudal,  republican, 
imperial — worthy,  at  the  same  time,  of  France 
and  of  Germany.  The  whole  history  of  Europe 
is  combined  within  its  two  great  aspects — in  this  flood  of 
the  warrior  and  of  the  philosopher — in  this  proud  stream 
which  causes  France  to  bound  with  joy  and  by  whose  pro- 
found murmurings  Germany  is  bewildered  in  dreams. 

The  Rhine  is  unique :  it  combines  the  qualities  of  every 
river.  Like  the  Rhone,  it  is  rapid  ;  broad,  like  the  Loire ; 
encased,  like  the  Meuse ;  serpentine,  like  the  Seine ;  limpid 
and  green,  like  the  Somme;  historical,  like  the  Tiber; 
royal,  like  the  Danube;  mysterious,  like  the  Nile;  spangled 
with  gold,  like  an  American  river ;  and  like  a  river  of  Asia, 
abounding  with  phantoms  and  fables. 

After  an  historical  period  the  Rhine  became  linked  with 
the  marvellous.  Where  the  noise  of  man  is  hushed,  Nature 
lends  a  tongue  to  the  nests  of  birds,  causes  the  caves  to 
whisper  and  a  thousand  voices  of  solitude  to  murmur: 


i8o  GERMANY 

where  historical  facts  cease,  imagination  gives  life  to  shad- 
ows and  realities  to  dreams.  Fables  took  root,  grew,  and 
blossomed  in  the  voids  of  History,  like  weeds  and  brambles 
in  the  crevices  of  a  ruined  palace. 

Civilization,  like  the  sun,  has  its  nights  and  its  days,  its 
plenitudes  and  its  eclipses;  now  it  disappears,  but  soon 
returns. 

As  soon  as  civilization  again  dawned  upon  Taunus,  there 
were  upon  the  borders  of  the  Rhine  a  whole  host  of  legends 
and  fabulous  stories.  Populations  of  mysterious  beings, 
who  inhabited  the  now  dismantled  castles,  had  held  com- 
munion with  the  belles  files  and  beaux  chevaliers  of  the 
place.  Spirits  of  the  rocks;  black  hunters,  crossing  the 
thickets  upon  stags  with  six  horns ;  the  maid  of  the  black 
fen ;  the  six  maidens  of  the  red  marshes ;  Wodan,  the  god 
with  ten  hands ;  the  twelve  black  men ;  the  raven  that 
croaked  its  song ;  the  devil  who  placed  his  stone  at  Teufel- 
stein  and  his  ladder  at  Teufelsleiter,  and  who  had  the 
effrontery  to  preach  publicly  at  Gernsbach,  near  the  Black 
Forest,  but,  happily,  the  Word  of  God  was  heard  at  the 
other  side  of  the  stream ;  the  demon  Urian,  who  crossed 
the  Rhine  at  Diisseldorf,  having  upon  his  back  the  banks 
that  he  had  taken  from  the  sea-shore,  with  which  he  in- 
tended to  destroy  Aix-la-Chapelle,  but  being  fatigued  with 
his  burden,  and  deceived  by  an  old  woman,  he  stupidly 
dropped  his  load  at  the  imperial  city.  At  that  epoch,  which 
for  us  was  plunged  into  a  penumbra,  when  magic  lights 
were  sparkling  here  and  there,  when  the  rocks,  the  woods, 
the  valleys,  were  tenanted  by  apparitions ;  mysterious  en- 
counters, infernal  castles,  melodious  songs  sung  by  invisible 
songstresses;  and  frightful  bursts  of  laughter  emanating 
from  mysterious  beings, — these,  with  a  host  of  other  adven- 


THE  RHINE  181 

tures,  shrouded  in  impossibility,  and  holding  on  by  the  heel 
of  reality,  are  detailed  in  the  legends. 

At  last  these  phantoms  disappeared  as  dawn  burst  in  upon 
them.  Civilization  again  resumed  its  sway,  and  fiction  gave 
place  to  fact.  The  Rhine  assumed  another  aspect :  abbeys 
and  convents  increased;  churches  were  built  along  the 
banks  of  the  river.  The  ecclesiastical  princes  multiplied 
the  edifices  in  the  Rhinegau,  as  the  prefects  of  Rome  had 
done  before  them. 

The  Sixteenth  Century  approached :  in  the  Fourteenth, 
the  Rhine  witnessed  the  invention  of  artillery ;  and  on 
its  bank,  at  Strasburg,  a  printing-office  was  first  estab- 
lished. In  1400,  the  famous  cannon,  fourteen  feet  in 
length,  was  cast  at  Cologne;  and  in  1472,  Vindelin  de 
Spire  printed  his  Bible.  A  new  world  was  coming  into 
being;  and,  strange  to  say,  it  was  upon  the  banks  of 
the  Rhine  that  those  two  mysterious  tools  with  which 
God  unceasingly  works  out  the  civilization  of  man — the 
catapult  and  the  book — war  and  thought,  took  a  new 
form. 

The  Rhine  has  had  a  sort  of  providential  signification 
in  the  destinies  of  Europe.  It  is  the  great  moat  which 
divides  the  north  from  the  south.  The  Rhine  for  thirty 
ages  has  seen  the  forms  and  reflected  the  shadows  of  almost 
all  the  warriors  who  tilled  the  old  continent  with  that  share 
which  they  called  sword.  Caesar  crossed  the  Rhine  in 
going  to  the  south ;  Attila  crossed  it  when  going  to  the 
north.  It  was  here  that  Clovis  gained  the  battle  of 
Tolbiac ;  and  here  that  Charlemagne  and  Napoleon  fig- 
ured. Frederick  Barbarossa,  Rodolph  of  Hapsburg  and 
Frederick  the  Great  were  victorious  and  formidable  when 
here.  For  the  thinker  who  is  conversant  with  History, 


182  GERMANY 

two  great  eagles  are  perpetually  hovering  over  the  Rhine — 
that  of  the  Roman  legions  and  the  eagle  of  the  French 
regiments. 

The  Rhine — that  noble  flood  named  by  the  Romans 
Rbenus  superbus — at  one  time  bore  upon  its  surface  bridges 
of  boats,  over  which  the  armies  of  Italy,  Spain  and  France 
poured  into  Germany,  and  which,  at  a  later  date,  were  made 
use  of  by  the  hordes  of  barbarians  when  rushing  into  the 
ancient  Roman  world :  at  another,  on  its  surface  it  floated 
peaceably  the  fir-trees  of  Murg  and  of  Saint  Gall,  the  por- 
phyry and  the  marble  of  Basle,  the  salt  of  Karlshall,  the 
leather  of  Stromberg,  the  quicksilver  of  Lansberg,  the  wine 
of  Johannisberg,  the  slates  of  Coab,  the  cloth  and  earthen- 
ware of  Wallendar,  and  the  silks  and  linens  of  Cologne. 
It  majestically  performs  its  double  function  of  flood  of  war 
and  flood  of  peace,  having,  without  interruption,  upon  the 
ranges  of  hills  which  embank  the  most  notable  portion  of 
its  course,  oak-trees  on  one  side  and  vineyards  on  the  other 
— signifying  strength  and  joy. 

For  Homer,  the  Rhine  existed  not ;  for  Virgil,  it  was 
only  a  frozen  stream — Frigora  Rheni ;  for  Shakespeare,  it 
was  the  "  beautiful  Rhine  " ;  for  us,  it  is  and  will  be  to  the 
day  when  it  shall  become  the  grand  question  of  Europe,  a 
picturesque  river,  the  resort  of  the  unemployed  of  Ems,  of 
Baden  and  of  Spa. 

Petrarch  visited  Aix-la-Chapelle,  but  I  do  not  think  he 
has  spoken  of  the  Rhine. 

The  left  bank  belongs  naturally  to  France :  Providence, 
at  three  different  periods,  gave  both  banks  to  France — 
under  Pepin-le-Bref,  Charlemagne  and  Napoleon.  The 
Empire  of  Pepin-le-Bref  comprised  France  with  the  ex- 
ception of  Aquitaine  and  Gascony,  and  Germany  as  far  as 


THE  RHINE  183 

Bavaria.  The  Empire  of  Charlemagne  was  twice  as  large 
as  that  of  Napoleon. 

The  Rhine — providential  flood — seems  to  be  a  symbolical 
stream.  In  its  windings,  in  its  course,  in  the  midst  of  all 
that  it  traverses,  it  is,  so  to  speak,  the  image  of  civilization 
to  which  it  has  been  and  still  is  so  useful.  It  flows  from 
Constance  to  Rotterdam  ;  from  the  country  of  eagles  to  the 
town  of  herrings ;  from  the  city  of  popes,  of  councils  and  of 
emperors  to  the  counter  of  the  merchant  and  of  the  citizen  ; 
from  the  great  Alps  themselves  to  the  immense  ocean. 

The  most  celebrated  and  admired  part  of  the  Rhine,  the 
most  interesting  for  the  historian  and  the  loveliest  for  the 
poet,  is  that  which  traverses,  from  Bingen  to  Krenigs- 
winter,  that  dark  chaos  of  volcanic  mounds  which  the 
Romans  termed  the  Alpes  des  Cattes. 

From  Mayence  to  Bingen,  as  from  Koenigswinter  to 
Cologne,  there  are  seven  leagues  of  rich  smiling  plains, 
with  handsome  villages,  on  the  river's  brink ;  but  the  great 
encaissement  of  the  Rhine  begins  at  Bingen  by  the  Ruperts- 
berg  and  Niederwald  and  terminates  at  Koenigswinter  at 
the  base  of  the  Seven  Mountains. 

From  Cologne  to  Mayence  there  are  forty-nine  islands, 
covered  with  thick  verdure  which  hide  the  smoking  roofs 
and  shade  the  barks  in  their  charming  havens  each  bearing 
some  association.  Graupenwerth,  where  the  Dutch  con- 
structed a  fort  called  the  Priest's  Cap ;  PfafFenmuth,  a  fort 
which  the  Spaniards  took  and  named  Isabella;  Graswerth, 
the  island  of  grass,  where  Jean  Philippe  de  Reichenberg 
wrote  his  Antiquitates  Saynenses ;  Niederwerth,  formerly  so 
rich  with  the  gifts  of  the  Margrave  Archbishop  John  II. ; 
Urmitzer  Insel,  well  known  to  Caesar;  and  Nonnenswerth, 
the  spot  frequented  by  Roland. 


184  GERMANY 

When  the  traveller  has  passed  Coblenz  and  left  behind 
him  the  lovely  island  of  Oberwerth,  the  mouth  of  the  Lahn 
strikes  his  attention.  The  scene  here  is  wonderful.  The 
two  crumbling  towers  of  Johanniskirch,  which  slightly  re- 
semble Jumieges,  rise  from  the  water's  edge.  To  the  right 
stands  the  magnificent  fortress  of  Stolzenfels  upon  the 
brow  of  a  huge  rock ;  and  to  the  left  on  the  horizon 
mingling  with  clouds  and  the  setting  sun  the  sombre 
ruins  of  Lahneck  abounding  with  enigmas  for  the  historian. 
On  each  side  of  the  Lahn  the  pretty  town  of  Niederlahn- 
stein  and  Oberlahnstein  smile  at  each  other.  A  stone's 
throw  from  Oberlahnstein  hidden  by  trees  is  a  chapel  of  the 
Fourteenth  Century,  where  the  deposition  of  Wencelas 
took  place.  Facing  this  chapel,  on  the  opposite  bank  is 
ancient  Koeningsstuhl,  which  half  a  century  ago  was  the 
seat  of  royalty  and  where  the  Emperors  were  elected  by  the 
seven  electors  of  Germany.  At  present,  four  stones  mark 
the  spot.  After  leaving  this  point,  the  traveller,  proceeding 
to  Braubach,  passes  Boppart,  Welmich,  Saint  Goar  and  Ober- 
wesel,  and  then  suddenly  comes  to  an  immense  rock,  sur- 
mounted by  an  enormous  tower  on  the  right  bank  of  the  river. 
At  the  base  of  the  rock  is  a  pretty  little  town  with  a  Roman 
church  in  the  centre ;  and  opposite  in  the  middle  of  the  Rhine 
is  a  strange  oblong  edifice,  whose  back  and  front  resemble 
the  prow  and  poop  of  a  vessel  and  whose  large  low  windows 
are  like  hatches  and  port-holes.  The  tower  is  Gutenfels ;  the 
town  is  Caub ;  and  the  stone  ship — eternally  at  anchor  on  the 
Rhine — is  the  Palace,  or  Pfalz.  To  enter  this  symbolic  resi- 
dence, which  is  built  upon  "the  Rock  of  the  Palatine  Counts," 
we  must  ascend  a  ladder  that  rests  upon  a  drawbridge. 

From  the  Taunus  to  the  Seven  Mountains  there  are 
fourteen  castles  on  the  right  bank  of  the  river  and  fifteen 


THE  RHINE  185 

on  the  left,  making  in  all  twenty-nine  which  bear  traces 
of  devastations  of  war  and  of  time.  Four  of  these  castles 
were  built  in  the  Eleventh  Century — Ehrenfels,  by  the 
Archbishop  of  Siegfried ;  Stahleck,  by  the  Counts  Palatine  ; 
Sayn,  by  Frederick,  first  Count  of  Sayn  and  vanquisher  of 
the  Moors  of  Spain ;  and  the  others  at  a  later  period. 

This  long  and  double  row  of  venerable  edifices  at  once 
romantic  and  military,  each  with  its  legends  and  history, 
begins  at  Bingen  with  Ehrenfels  on  the  right  and  the  Rat 
Tower  on  the  left  and  ends  at  Koenigswinter,  with  Roland- 
seek  on  the  left  and  Drachenfels  on  the  right. 

The  number  I  have  given  includes  only  those  castles  on 
the  banks,  which  every  traveller  can  see  in  passing;  but 
should  he  explore  the  valleys  and  climb  the  hills,  he  will 
meet  a.  ruin  at  every  step;  and  if  he  ascend  the  Seven 
Mountains,  he  will  find  an  abbey,  Schomburg,  and  six 
castles, — the  Drachenfels,Wolkenberg,Lowenberg,Nonne- 
stromberg  and  the  CElberg,  the  last  of  which  was  built 
by  Valentinian  in  the  year  368. 

In  the  plain  near  Mayence  is  Frauenstein,  built  in  the 
Twelfth  Century,  Scarfenstein  and  Greifenklau ;  and  on 
the  Cologne  side  is  the  admirable  castle  of  Godesberg. 

These  ancient  castles  of  the  Rhine,  built  in  feudal 
times,  give  a  feeling  of  romance  to  the  scenery.  All  the 
great  events  which  from  time  to  time  shook  and  frightened 
Europe,  have,  like  flashes  of  lightning,  lighted  up  these  old 
piles.  At  present,  the  sun  and  moon  alone  shed  their  light 
upon  these  old  buildings  famed  in  story  and  gnawed  by 
time,  whose  walls  are  falling  stone  by  stone  into  the  Rhine 
and  whose  history  is  fast  fading  into  oblivion. 

O  noble  tower !  O  poor  paralyzed  giants  !  A  steam- 
boat filled  with  travellers  now  hurls  its  smoke  in  your  faces. 


THE  BANKS  OF  THE  RHINE 

F.   WILLIAMSON 

IN  a  quaint  little  handbook  giving  an  account  of  a  Con- 
tinental ramble,  the  passage  up  the  Rhine  from  Co- 
logne to  Mayence  is  delightfully  compressed  into  the 
following  : 

"  After  leaving  Bonn  there  is  a  constant  succession  of  ob- 
jects of  interest,  old  castles,  quaint  towns,  curious  churches, 
terraced  vine-clad  hills,  the  whole  region  saturated  with 
legend,  and  an  excellent  dinner  on  board  the  steamer  for 
three  marks."  This,  perhaps,  fairly  well  epitomizes  the 
general  idea  that  the  steamboat  traveller  gets  of  the  varied 
scenery  through  which  he  passes,  perhaps  too  quickly,  and 
with  but  an  occasional  chance  of  stopping  and  quietly  en- 
joying any  particular  spot  if  he  should  desire  so  to  do. 

To  the  pedestrian,  however,  carrying  the  smallest  pos- 
sible impedimenta,  a  ramble  along  the  river  banks  and 
country  roads,  following  the  river's  many  windings,  and 
wandering  at  will  through  the  curious  old  towns  and  vil- 
lages studding  its  banks,  offers  a  most  delightful  way  of 
spending  a  week  or  two.  The  distances  from  town  to 
town  are  for  the  most  part  but  easy  walks,  and  there  is  al- 
ways the  pleasurable  certainty  of  a  dinner  and  a  "zimmer" 
at  any  place  one  may  happen  to  reach. 

Perhaps  the  greatest  charm  of  the  Rhine  is  in  the 
notable  variety  and  changes  of  the  scenery  along  its  banks. 
To  start  with,  there  are  the  grand  architectural  subjects 


THE  BANKS  OF  THE  RHINE       187 

given  by  the  finely  grouped  buildings  and  skilfully  designed 
towers  of  such  cities  as  Cologne,  Coblenz,  and  Mayence  ; 
the  river  spanned  by  the  curious,  but  very  useful,  boat 
bridges,  and  the  varied  character  of  the  boats  continually 
passing  up  and  down — from  the  broad,  heavy  built  and 
elaborately  decorated  Dutch  barges,  with  their  great  red  or 
white  sails  and  slow  movements,  harmonizing  beautifully 
with  the  mediaeval  buildings ;  and  the  mellow  air  of  antiquity 
which  seems  to  pervade  some  of  the  old  towns  and 
villages,  and  pleasantly  contrasting  with  the  hurry  and 
bustle  of  the  numerous  steam-tugs  and  passenger  steamers, 
which  seem  now  to  consider  the  river  their  own.  A  little 
less  in  interest  thai}  the  large  cities  are  the  smaller  towns 
that  stud  the  banks  at  intervals,  on  both  sides  of  the  river ; 
for  the  most  part  very  ancient  and,  in  many  instances,  still 
partially  enclosed  by  their  mediaeval  walls  and  towers,  sur- 
rounded by  vine-clad  hills,  and  generally  with  a  ruined 
castle  perched  on  the  highest  point  in  the  neighbourhood. 
In  some  districts  these  castles  form  the  most  conspicuous 
features  in  the  landscape,  nearly  every  prominent  hill 
seeming  to  have  one  upon  it ;  they  appear  almost  to  be 
dotted  about  a  little  too  liberally,  for  perchance  you  feel 
that  you  would  like  to  take  a  closer  interest  in  one  of  the 
old  ruins,  and  you  climb  the  hill  to  investigate,  when,  on 
nearly  reaching  the  object  of  your  ambition,  you  see  per- 
haps two  or  even  three  more  coming  into  view  in  the  dis- 
tance, and  the  spell  is  broken,  and  desire  for  investigation 
fails,  and  you  go  back  once  more  to  the  fields  and  roads. 
These  country  roads  are  far  from  being  uninteresting,  for, 
besides  the  continually  changing  character  of  the  landscape, 
every  now  and  then  you  come  across  interesting  little  old 
shrines  by  the  roadside,  some  containing  perhaps  the  figure 


i88  GERMANY 

of  a  saint  and  a  few  faded  flowers,  others  of  a  more 
pretentious  character,  with  interiors  painted  like  little 
chapels  and  with  an  altar  and  candles,  and  more  rarely,  one 
desecrated  by  dust  and  cobwebs.  Now  and  then  you  may 
find,  set  up  by  the  side  of  the  road,  a  fine  sculptured  stone 
cross,  and  in  at  least  one  of  the  villages  is  a  crucifix,  life 
size,  and  painted  most  realistically. 

On  leaving  Cologne  on  our  ramble  up  the  river,  the  first 
stopping  place  is  Keen  igs winter,  a  little  town  lying  at  the 
foot  of  the  Drachenfels,  perhaps  more  noted  for  its  com- 
fortable hotels,  than  for  its  antiquity  or  picturesqueness. 
Crossing  the  ferry  and  taking  the  footpath  along  the  river 
bank,  several  very  fine  views  are  obtained  of  the  castled 
Drachenfels,  and  of  the  long  range  of  what  are  called  the 
Seven  Mountains,  but  of  which  the  peaks  number  at  least 
thirty,  stretching  one  after  another  for  some  eight  or  nine 
miles,  nearly  parallel  with  the  Rhine.  In  about  half  an 
hour,  we  come  to  the  beautifully  wooded  island  of  Nonnen- 
werth,  with  the  turret  and  roof  of  the  Twelfth  Century 
nunnery  showing  above  the  trees  ;  and  on  our  right  are  the 
steep  wooded  heights  of  Rolandseck. 

A  pleasant  walk  of  a  few  miles  along  the  bank  and 
we  reach  the  small  town  of  Remagen,  lying  low  in  a 
bend  of  the  river,  its  picturesque  church-tower  rising  con- 
spicuously above  the  town.  In  the  distance,  on  the  other 
side  of  the  river,  lies  the  town  of  Linz,  partly  surrounded 
by  walls  and  towers,  with  beautifully  wooded  hills  forming 
a  background  to  the  scene.  For  several  miles  beyond 
Remagen  the  ground  near  the  river  is  rather  flat.  After 
crossing  the  bridge  over  the  little  stream  of  the  Ahr,  we  are 
soon  clattering  through  the  streets  of  the  little  old  town  of 
Sinsig,  which  leaves  on  the  memory  a  recollection  chiefly 


THE  BANKS  OF  THE  RHINE       189 

of  narrow  streets,  paved  with  large,  uncomfortable  peb- 
bles ;  it  has,  however,  a  beautiful  late  Romanesque  church. 
A  long  straight  road,  fringed  with  apple  trees,  leads  through 
the  fields,  and  passing  the  old  wayside  cross,  we  reach  the 
village  of  Niederbreisig,  and  beyond  this,  on  a  finely 
wooded  hill,  stands  the  castle  of  Rheineck.  After  a  long 
walk  through  the  fields,  lying  low,  between  the  hills  and 
the  river,  and  getting  a  passing  glimpse  of  the  grey  ruins  of 
Hammerstein,  we  reach  Andernach,  one  of  the  most  an- 
cient of  the  smaller  towns.  The  mediaeval  walls  and 
towers  remaining  nearly  complete  in  places,  the  narrow 
streets  and  old  houses,  the  late  Romanesque  church  with  its 
four  towers,  and  the  fine  old  watch-tower  near  the  river, 
make  the  town  one  of  considerable  interest. 

Beyond  Andernach,  the  ground  near  the  river  is  fairly 
flat  and  with  not  a  great  deal  of  interest  until  Coblenz  is 
reached,  and  this,  for  beauty  of  surroundings,  can  vie  with 
any  other  town  on  the  Rhine;  lying  at  the  junction  of  the 
Moselle  and  the  Rhine,  the  fortress  of  Ehrenbreitstein 
crowns  the  heights  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  Rhine, 
which  is  crossed  by  the  bridge  of  boats.  The  place  has 
many  old  houses  and  churches  ;  of  the  latter,  the  basilican 
church  of  St.  Castor,  lying  on  the  point  of  land  at  the 
junction  of  the  two  rivers,  with  its  two  rather  flat  western 
towers,  is  perhaps  the  most  interesting.  The  grandly 
simple  lines  of  its  interior  are  finely  enhanced  with  frescoes 
on  the  walls.  The  older  parts  of  the  town  lie  along  the 
Moselle,  spanned  by  a  Fourteenth  Century  bridge  of  four- 
teen arches. 

Near  this  bridge  is  the  ancient  Burg,  a  delightful  building 
of  yellowish  stone,  steep  grey-slated  roof,  with  rows  of 
dormers,  formerly  the  Archiepiscopal  Palace,  but  now 


190  GERMANY 

turned  to  more  prosaic  uses.  Crossing  the  Rhine  by  the 
boat  bridge,  we  continue  our  journey  up  the  river  by  a 
footpath  along  the  left  bank.  A  little  way  after  passing 
the  second  railway  bridge,  which  crosses  the  river  at  a 
high  level,  the  view  becomes  very  romantic.  The  grassy 
path  wanders  under  a  row  of  tall  poplars,  growing  by  the 
side  of  the  water,  and  we  soon  come  to  a  very  curious  bat- 
tering wall,  with  huge  buttresses  at  intervals,  very  ancient 
looking  and  grey,  seeming  like  the  enclosing  wall  of  the 
grounds  of  some  old  monastery.  The  scene,  shut  in  by 
steep  wooded  hills  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  river,  gives 
quite  an  old-world  impression  ;  there  are  no  sounds  to  be 
heard  but  the  rippling  of  the  stream  and  the  quivering  of 
the  aspens,  and  no  signs  of  human  labour  but  this  grey  old 
wall,  looking  centuries  old.  But  the  scene  quickly  changes 
as  we  approach  the  mouth  of  the  little  river  Lahn,  passing 
the  Romanesque  church  with  tall  square  tower  and  grey- 
pointed  roof,  standing  quite  alone  among  the  trees  at  the 
bend  of  the  river,  a  short  distance  from  the  quaint  old- 
fashioned  village  of  Niederlahnstein.  Looking  across  the 
river  we  obtain  a  view  of  the  royal  castle  of  Stolzenfels, 
on  the  beautifully  wooded  heights  above  Capellan. 

Crossing  the  Lahn,  we  soon  pass  through  Oberlahnstein, 
some  of  its  old  walls  and  towers  still  standing,  but  rather 
ruthlessly  cut  through  by  the  railway.  Still  following  the 
path  at  the  river's  edge,  a  short  walk  brings  us  to  the  fine 
old  castle  of  Marksburg,  perched  on  a  hill  nearly  five  hun- 
dred feet  above  the  river.  At  its  base,  nestling  amidst 
trees  and  gardens,  lies  the  little  town  of  Braubach,  of 
which  the  church  has  a  quaintly  designed  tower.  Beyond 
Marksburg,  the  road  for  several  miles  follows  the  many 
windings  of  the  river,  hemmed  in  on  both  sides  by  long 


THE  BANKS  OF  THE  RHINE       191 

ranges  of  undulating  hills  forming  perhaps  some  of  the 
wildest  scenery  on  the  Rhine.  After  crossing  the  river  by 
the  ferry  at  Boppard,  our  road  follows  the  right  bank  un- 
til St.  Goar  is  reached.  A  little  way,  however,  before 
reaching  St.  Goar,  there  is  quite  a  Turneresque  view, 
across  the  river,  of  a  small  town  lying  at  the  foot  of  a 
ravine  between  high  hills,  the  church,  with  its  typical 
Rhenish  tower,  and  a  few  tall  poplars  by  the  water-side ;  a 
ruined  castle  crowns  one  of  the  hills  above  the  town. 

St.  Goar  itself  is  a  curious  little  place,  lying  low  on 
the  river's  bank  and  surrounded  by  hills,  and  on  one  stand 
the  extensive  ruins  of  Rheinfels.  Across  the  river  on  the 
opposite  hill  is  another  castle,  and  at  its  foot  the  village 
of  St.  Goarhausen,  consisting  mainly  of  hotels  and  board- 
ing-houses. There  are  several  fine  views  from  the  neigh- 
bouring heights,  but  perhaps  the  most  impressive  scene 
is  from  the  railway  bank,  a  short  distance  below  the 
town.  On  the  wild  rocky  heights  to  the  right  are  the 
Rheinfels  ruins,  and  low  down  in  the  hollow  lies  the 
little  town,  its  church  and  tower  standing  well  above  the 
houses.  Beyond  is  a  fine  series  of  receding  hills,  the 
river  winding  in  serpentine  curves  between,  St.  Goarhausen 
and  the  Katz  Castle  forming  a  distant  echo  to  St.  Goar 
and  the  Rheinfels,  for  the  foreground  the  winding  road 
leading  into  the  town,  and  a  glorious  group  of  poplars 
between  it  and  the  river.  A  short  distance  above  St. 
Goar,  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  river,  rises  the  legendary 
Lurlei  rocks,  and  a  couple  of  miles  farther  we  reach 
Oberwesel,  one  of  the  loveliest  spots  on  the  Rhine. 

Looking  down  upon  it  from  the  vineyards  on  the  hill 
slopes  in  the  bright  early  morning,  it  seems  almost  like  a 
dream.  The  old  town,  delightful  in  the  varied  colours  of 


192  GERMANY 

its  mellow  walls  and  quaintly-shaped  towers,  its  stately 
Frauenkirche,  and  the  little  chapel  on  the  walls  next  the 
river,  lies  in  one  of  the  pleasantest  spots  imaginable,  shut 
in  and  surrounded  by  beautiful  hills  covered  with  vine- 
yards. On  a  wooded  hill  beyond  the  town  rises  the  castle 
of  Schonburg,  its  circular  keep  standing  well  above  every- 
thing, and  the  broad-bosomed  Rhine  seeming  almost  to 
sleep  as  it  glides  along,  so  silent  is  it.  An  hour's  walk 
along  the  road,  which  is  parallel  with  the  river,  brings 
us  opposite  Caub,  another  village  with  mediaeval  walls 
and  towers.  On  a  vine-clad  hill  at  the  back  of  the  town 
rises  the  castle  of  Gutenfels,  surrounded  by  battlemented 
walls  and  turrets,  picturesquely  following  the  rise  and  fall 
of  the  hill  on  which  it  stands. 

On  a  reef  of  rocks,  rising  out  of  the  middle  of  the  river, 
nearly  opposite  Caub,  stands  the  Pfalz,  a  mediaeval  river 
toll-house,  with  its  curious  grey-turreted  roofs.  Still  fol- 
lowing the  river  banks  for  about  a  couple  of  miles,  Bach- 
arach  is  reached,  a  place  full  of  interesting  old  work; 
the  black-timbered  houses,  the  Templar's  church,  with  its 
round  choir  next  the  street,  the  beautiful  ruins  of  the 
church  of  St.  Werner  on  a  hill  above  the  town,  the  tall 
pointed  windows  and  arches  looking,  as  seen  from  below, 
like  a  wonderful  piece  of  lacework — these,  with  the  old 
walls  and  towers,  complete  a  scene  which  requires  but 
a  little  imagination  to  realize  the  Fifteenth  Century. 

Leaving  Bacharach  it  is  a  long  afternoon's  walk  along 
the  road  by  the  river  to  Bingen.  The  scenery  becomes 
less  interesting;  the  lower  hills  are  still  covered  with 
vineyards ;  one  or  two  castles  and  the  little  Clemens- 
Kapelle  on  the  river-bank  give  variety  to  the  scene. 
Just  before  reaching  Bingen,  however,  the  scenery  gets 


THE  BANKS  OF  THE  RHINE       193 

wilder  and  more  picturesque,  and  the  river  narrower  and 
more  rapid.  Crossing  the  bridge  over  the  river  Nahe, 
which  here  joins  the  Rhine,  nearly  opposite  being  the 
ruins  of  Ehrenfels,  we  enter  the  little  Hessian  town  of 
Bingen.  The  view  from  the  quay  at  Bingen,  looking 
across  the  river  to  Rudesheim,  late  in  the  afternoon,  is 
very  fine ;  its  old  towers  and  bright  modern  buildings  of 
varied  colours,  with  its  background  of  low  hills,  lying 
bathed  in  the  light  of  the  setting  sun,  and  being  reflected 
in  the  shimmering  waters  of  the  river,  form  a  lovely 
gem-like  picture.  Between  Bingen  and  Mayence  the  river 
wanders  through  a  wide  and  fertile  valley,  the  long  low 
hills  on  the  left  bank  being  mainly  devoted  to  the  wine 
industry,  the  success  of  which  evidently  accounts  for  the 
general  air  of  prosperity  and  comfort  of  the  several  little 
towns,  and  the  many  well-groomed  mansions  and  villas 
which  are  passed  ere  the  city  of  Mayence  is  reached. 


STRASBURG 

VICTOR   HUGO 

I  ARRIVED    in    Nancy    Sunday    evening    at    seven 
o'clock;   at  eight  the  diligence  started  again.     Was 
I   more  fatigued  ?     Was  the  road  better  ?     The  fact 
is  I  propped  myself  on  the  braces  of  the  conveyance  and 
slept.     Thus  I  arrived  in  Phalsbourg. 

I  woke  up  about  four  in  the  morning.  A  cool  breeze 
blew  upon  my  face  and  the  carriage  was  going  down  the 
incline  at  a  gallop,  for  we  were  descending  the  famous 
Saverne. 

It  was  one  of  the  most  beautiful  impressions  I  ever 
experienced.  The  rain  had  ceased,  the  mists  had  been 
blown  to  the  four  winds  and  the  crescent  moon  slipped 
rapidly  through  the  clouds  and  sailed  freely  through  the 
azure  space  like  a  barque  on  a  little  lake.  A  breeze 
which  came  from  the  Rhine  made  the  trees,  which  bor- 
dered the  road,  tremble.  From  time  to  time  they  waved 
aside  and  permitted  me  to  see  an  indistinct  and  frightful 
abyss :  in  the  foreground,  a  forest  beneath  which  the 
mountain  disappeared ;  below,  immense  plains,  meandering 
streams  glittering  like  streaks  of  lightning;  and  in  the 
background  a  dark,  indistinct,  and  heavy  line — the  Black 
Forest — a  magical  panorama  beheld  by  moonlight.  Such 
incomplete  visions  have,  perhaps,  more  distinction  than 
any  others.  They  are  dreams  which  one  can  look  upon 
and  feel.  I  knew  that  my  eyes  rested  on  France,  Ger- 


STRASBURG  195 

many  and  Switzerland,  Strasburg  with  its  spire,  the  Black 
Forest  with  its  mountains  and  the  Rhine  with  its  wind- 
ings ;  I  looked  at  everything  and  I  saw  nothing.  I  have 
never  experienced  a  more  extraordinary  sensation.  Add 
to  that  the  hour,  the  journey,  the  horses  dashing  down 
the  precipice,  the  violent  noise  of  the  wheels,  the  rattling 
of  the  windows,  the  frequent  passage  through  dark  woods, 
the  breath  of  the  morning  upon  the  mountains,  a  gentle 
murmur  heard  through  the  valleys,  and  the  beauty  of  the 
sky,  and  you  will  understand  what  I  felt.  Day  is  amaz- 
ing in  this  valley ;  night  is  fascinating. 

The  descent  took  a  quarter  of  an  hour.  Half  an  hour 
later  came  the  twilight  of  morning ;  at  my  left  the  dawn 
quickened  the  lower  sky,  a  group  of  white  houses  with 
black  roofs  became  visible  on  the  summit  of  a  hill,  the  blue 
of  day  began  to  overflow  the  horizon,  several  peasants 
passed  by  going  to  their  vines,  a  clear,  cold  and  violet 
light  struggled  with  the  ashy  glimmer  of  the  moon,  the 
constellations  paled,  two  of  the  Pleiades  were  lost  to  sight, 
the  three  horses  in  our  chariot  descended  rapidly  towards 
their  stable  with  its  blue  doors ;  it  was  cold,  and  I  was 
frozen,  for  it  had  become  necessary  to  open  the  windows. 
A  moment  afterwards  the  sun  rose,  and  the  first  thing  it 
showed  to  me  was  the  village  notary  shaving  at  a  broken 
mirror  under  a  red  calico  curtain. 

A  league  further  on  the  peasants  became  more  picturesque 
and  the  waggons  magnificent.  I  counted  in  one  thirteen 
mules  harnessed  far  apart  by  long  chains.  You  felt  you 
were  approaching  Strasburg,  the  old  German  city. 

Galloping  furiously,  we  traversed  Wasselonne,  a  long, 
narrow  trench  of  houses  strangled  in  the  last  gorge  of  the 
Vosges — by  the  side  of  Strasburg.  There  I  caught  a 


196  GERMANY 

glimpse  of  one  facade  of  the  Cathedral,  surmounted  by 
three  round  and  pointed  towers  in  juxtaposition,  which  the 
movement  of  the  diligence  brought  before  my  vision 
brusquely  and  then  took  it  away,  jolting  it  about  as  if  it 
were  a  scene  in  the  theatre. 

Suddenly,  at  a  turn  in  the  road,  the  mist  lifted  and  I  saw 
the  Miinster.  It  was  six  o'clock  in  the  morning.  The 
enormous  Cathedral,  which  is  the  highest  building  that  the 
hand  of  man  has  made  since  the  great  Pyramid,  was  clearly 
defined  against  a  background  of  dark  mountains  whose 
forms  were  magnificent  and  whose  valleys  were  flooded 
with  sunshine.  The  work  of  God  made  for  man  and  the 
work  of  man  made  for  God,  the  mountain  and  the  Cathe- 
dral contesting  for  grandeur.  I  have  never  seen  anything 
more  imposing. 

Yesterday  I  visited  the  Cathedral.  The  Miinster  is  truly 
a  marvel.  The  doors  of  the  church  are  beautiful,  particu- 
larly the  Roman  porch,  the  facade  contains  some  superb 
figures  on  horseback,  the  rose-window  is  beautifully  cut, 
and  the  entire  face  of  the  Cathedral  is  a  poem,  ably  com- 
posed. But  the  real  triumph  of  the  Cathedral  is  the  spire. 
It  is  a  true  tiara  of  stone  with  its  crown  and  its  cross.  It 
is  a  prodigy  of  grandeur  and  delicacy.  I  have  seen 
Chartres,  and  I  have  seen  Antwerp ;  but  Strasburg  pleases 
me  best. 

The  church  has  never  been  finished.  The  apse,  miser- 
ably mutilated,  has  been  restored  according  to  that  imbecile, 
the  Cardinal  de  Rohan,  of  the  necklace  fame.  It  is  hideous. 
The  window  they  have  selected  is  like  a  modern  carpet. 
It  is  ignoble.  The  other  windows,  with  the  exception  of 
some  added  panes,  are  beautiful ; — notably  the  great  rose- 
window.  All  the  church  is  shamefully  whitewashed  ;  some 


STRASBURG  197 

of  the  sculptures  have  been  restored  with  some  little  taste. 
This  Cathedral  has  been  affected  by  all  styles.  The  pulpit 
is  a  little  construction  of  the  Fifteenth  Century,  of  florid 
Gothic  of  ravishing  design  and  style.  Unfortunately,  they 
have  gilded  it  in  the  most  stupid  manner.  The  baptismal 
font  is  of  the  same  period  and  is  restored  in  a  superior  man- 
ner. It  is  a  vase  surrounded  by  foliage  in  sculpture,  the 
most  marvellous  in  the  world.  In  a  dark  chapel  at  the 
side,  there  are  two  tombs.  One,  of  a  bishop  of  the  time  of 
Louis  V.,  is  of  that  formidable  character  which  Gothic 
architecture  always  expresses.  The  sepulchre  is  in  two 
floors.  The  bishop,  in  pontifical  robes  and  with  his  mitre 
on  his  head,  is  lying  in  his  bed  under  a  canopy  j  he  is  sleep- 
ing. Above  and  on  the  foot  of  the  bed  in  the  shadow,  you 
perceive  an  enormous  stone  in  which  two  enormous  iron 
rings  are  imbedded ;  that  is  the  lid  of  the  tomb.  You  see 
nothing  more.  The  architects  of  the  Sixteenth  Century 
showed  you  the  corpse  (you  remember  the  tombs  of 
Brou  ?)  j  those  of  the  Fourteenth  concealed  it :  this  is  even 
more  terrifying.  Nothing  could  be  more  sinister  than 
these  two  rings. 

The  tomb  of  which  I  have  spoken  is  in  the  left  arm  of 
the  cross.  In  the  right  arm,  there  is  a  chapel,  which  scaf- 
folding prevented  me  from  seeing.  At  the  side  of  this 
chapel  runs  a  balustrade  of  the  Fifteenth  Century,  against 
the  wall.  A  sculptured  and  painted  figure  leans  against 
this  balustrade  and  seems  to  be  admiring  a  pillar  surrounded 
by  statues  placed  one  over  the  other,  which  is  directly  oppo- 
site, and  which  has  a  marvellous  effect.  Tradition  says 
that  this  figure  represents  the  first  architect  of  the  Miin- 
ster — Erwyn  von  Steinbach. 

I  did  not  see  the  famous  astronomical  clock,  which  is  in 


198  GERMANY 

the  nave ;  and  which  is  a  charming  little  production  of  the 
Sixteenth  Century.  It  was  being  repaired,  and  was  covered 
with  a  scaffolding  of  boards. 

After  having  seen  the  church,  I  made  the  ascent  of  the 
steeple.  You  know  my  taste  for  perpendicular  trips.  I 
was  very  careful  not  to  miss  the  highest  spire  in  the  world. 
The  Munster  of  Strasburg  is  nearly  five  hundred  feet  high. 
It  belongs  to  the  family  of  spires  that  are  open-worked 
stairways. 

It  is  delightful  to  wind  about  in  that  monstrous  mass  of 
stone,  filled  with  air  and  light,  hollowed  out  like  a  joujou 
de  Dieppe,  a  lantern  as  well  as  a  pyramid,  which  vibrates 
and  palpitates  with  every  breath  of  the  wind.  I  mounted 
as  far  as  the  vertical  stairs.  As  I  went  up,  I  met  a  visitor 
who  was  descending,  pale  and  trembling,  and  half  carried 
by  the  guide.  There  is,  however,  no  danger.  The  danger 
begins  where  I  stopped,  where  the  spire,  properly  so-called, 
begins.  Four  open-worked  spiral  stairways,  corresponding 
to  the  four  vertical  towers,  unroll  in  an  entanglement  of 
delicate,  slender  and  beautifully-worked  stone,  supported 
by  the  spire,  every  angle  of  which  it  follows,  winding  until 
it  reaches  the  crown  at  about  thirty  feet  from  the  lantern 
surmounted  by  a  cross  which  forms  the  summit  of  the  bell- 
tower.  The  steps  of  these  stairways  are  very  steep  and 
very  narrow,  and  become  narrower  and  narrower  as  you 
ascend,  until  there  is  barely  ledge  enough  on  which  to  place 
your  foot. 

In  this  way  you  have  to  climb  a  hundred  feet  which 
brings  you  four  hundred  feet  above  the  street.  There  are 
no  hand-rails,  or  such  slight  ones  that  they  are  not  worth 
speaking  about.  The  entrance  to  this  stairway  is  closed 
by  an  iron  grille.  They  will  not  open  this  grille  without 


STRASBURG  199 

a  special  permission  from  the  mayor  of  Strasburg ;  and  no- 
body is  allowed  to  ascend  it  unless  accompanied  by  two 
workmen  of  the  roof,  who  tie  a  rope  around  your  body, 
the  end  of  which  they  fasten  as  you  ascend  to  the  various 
iron  bars  which  bind  the  mullions.  Only  a  week  ago  three 
German  women,  a  mother  and  her  two  daughters,  made 
this  ascent.  Nobody  but  the  workmen  of  the  roof,  who 
repair  the  bell-tower,  are  allowed  to  go  beyond  the  lantern. 
Here  there  is  not  even  a  stairway,  but  only  a  simple  iron 
ladder. 

From  where  I  stopped,  the  view  was  wonderful.  Stras- 
burg lies  at  your  feet — the  old  town  with  its  dentelated 
gables,  and  its  large  roofs  encumbered  with  chimneys  and 
its  towers  and  churches — as  picturesque  as  any  town  of 
Flanders.  The  111  and  the  Rhine,  two  lovely  rivers,  en- 
liven this  dark  mass  with  their  plashing  waters,  so  clear  and 
green.  Beyond  the  walls,  as  far  as  the  eye  can  reach, 
stretches  an  immense  country  richly  wooded  and  dotted 
with  villages.  The  Rhine,  which  flows  within  a  league  of 
the  town,  winds  through  the  landscape.  In  walking 
around  this  bell-tower  you  see  three  chains  of  mountains — 
the  ridges  of  the  Black  Forest  on  the  north,  the  Vosges  on 
the  west,  and  the  Alps  in  the  centre. 

The  sun  willingly  makes  a  festival  for  those  who  are 
upon  great  heights.  At  the  moment  I  reached  the  top  of 
the  Munster,  it  suddenly  scattered  the  clouds  with  which 
the  sky  had  been  covered  all  day,  and  turned  the  smoke  of 
the  city  and  all  the  mists  of  the  valley  to  rosy  flames,  while 
it  showered  a  golden  rain  on  Saverne,  whose  magnificent 
slope  I  saw  twelve  leagues  towards  the  horizon,  through 
the  most  resplendent  haze.  Behind  me  a  large  cloud 
dropped  rain  upon  the  Rhine  ;  the  gentle  hum  of  the  town 


200  GERMANY 

was  brought  to  me  by  some  puffs  of  wind ;  the  bells  echoed 
from  a  hundred  villages;  some  little  red  and  white  fleas, 
which  were  really  a  herd  of  cattle,  grazed  in  the  meadow 
to  the  right ;  other  little  blue  and  red  fleas,  which  were 
really  gunners,  performed  field-exercise  in  the  polygon  to 
the  left ;  a  black  beetle,  which  was  the  diligence,  crawled 
along  the  road  to  Metz ;  and  to  the  north,  on  the  brow  of 
the  hill,  the  castle  of  the  Grand  Duke  of  Baden  sparkled 
in  a  flash  of  light  like  a  precious  stone.  I  went  from  one 
tower  to  another,  looking  by  turns  upon  France,  Switzer- 
land and  Germany,  all  illuminated  by  the  same  ray  of  sun- 
light. 

Each  tower  looks  upon  a  different  country.  Descending 
I  stopped  for  a  few  moments  at  one  of  the  high  doors  of 
the  tower  stairway.  On  either  side  of  this  door  are  the 
stone  effigies  of  the  two  architects  of  the  Miinster.  These 
two  great  poets  are  represented  as  kneeling  and  looking  be- 
hind them  upward  as  if  they  were  lost  in  astonishment  at 
the  height  of  the  work.  I  put  myself  in  the  same  posture 
and  remained  thus  for  several  minutes.  At  the  platform 
they  made  me  write  my  name  in  a  book ;  after  this,  I  went 
away. 


IN  THE  KAISER'S  COUNTRY 

G.   W.  STEEPENS 

IT  needs  no  customs-house  to  tell  you  that  you  have 
come  into  Germany.  You  are  in  a  new  atmosphere 
—an  atmosphere  of  order,  of  discipline,  of  system, 
rigidly  applied  to  the  smallest  detail.  The  officials  carry 
themselves  stiffly,  and  seem  to  live  with  their  heels  together 
at  attention.  I  must  own  at  once  that  they  have  been  far 
more  civil  than  I  seem  to  remember  them  in  the  past: 
whether  it  is  that  the  newer  generation  of  Prussian  non- 
commissioned officer  has  improved  his  manners,  or  that  I 
have  improved  mine,  must  be  left  for  other  criticism  to  de- 
cide. But,  civil  or  not,  they  know  exactly  what  it  is  their 
duty  to  do,  and  they  do  it  exactly.  The  railway  stations 
are  almost  exactly  alike — roomy,  airy,  spotlessly  clean,  but 
painfully  naked  brick  and  glass.  No  advertisements  are 
allowed  in  German  stations :  they  belong  to  the  Govern- 
ment, and  anything  smacking  of  enterprise  in  the  individual 
must  be  kept  far  from  them.  Even  the  name  of  the 
station  is  usually  wanting,  or  else  inscribed  somewhere  high 
up,  and  on  the  side  of  the  wall  where  only  the  engine- 
driver  can  see  it.  The  passenger  is  not  expected  to  know 
for  himself  when  he  gets  to  his  destination.  He  is  in 
charge  of  the  guard,  and  must  so  leave  himself,  like  a 
corpse  in  the  hands  to  his  superior. 

Hanging  in  the  railway  carriage,  as  like  as  not,  you  will 
find    a  little  blue-paper-covered   book  with  directions   for 


202  GERMANY 

railway  travelling.  The  directions  cover  several  closely 
printed  pages,  and  deal  with  every  branch  of  the  subject, 
from  the  time  you  must  arrive  at  the  station  to  the  precise 
circumstances  in  which  the  window  may  be  let  down.  If 
you  have  not  got  your  baggage  ready  to  be  booked  a  quarter 
of  an  hour  before  your  train  is  due  to  start,  then  you  must 
wait  for  the  next.  No  bundling  in  at  the  last  moment  for 
methodical  Germany.  You  must  not  get  in  or  out  until 
the  guard  tells  you.  It  is  not,  I  fancy,  punishable  to  open 
the  door  of  your  carriage  yourself,  but  there  is  a  bolt  at  the 
very  bottom  of  the  door,  and  if  you  try  to  lean  out  and 
open  it  yourself,  you  stand  a  fair  chance  of  taking  a  header 
on  to  the  platform.  The  very  vocabulary  of  the  guard 
seems  contrived  to  impress  on  you  that  you  are  not  a  person 
but  only  a  part  of  a  system.  "  Everything  get  in,"  "Every- 
thing get  out,"  is  the  literal  translation  of  his  commands. 

Arrived  at  Berlin,  you  find  a  porter  who  takes  your 
luggage-ticket  and  goes  off  to  get  your  luggage  at  the 
proper  counter :  no  picking  up  your  bags  off  the  platform 
for  orderly  Germany.  "  Go  to  the  right,"  says  one  notice; 
"  Have  tickets  ready,"  says  another.  These  notices  use  an 
infinite  imperative,  as  being  the  most  impersonal  grammat- 
ical form  known;  you  are  not  a  person  so  much  as  the 
object  of  a  direction.  A  policeman  gives  you  a  metal 
ticket  with  the  number  of  the  cab  you  are  to  take :  no 
picking  a  likely-looking  horse  in  Germany.  In  the  cab 
are  the  rules  and  regulations  for  taking  a  cab.  So  they  are 
in  ours,  no  doubt;  but  what  a  lesson  in  precision  is  the 
Berlin  notice,  with  the  tariff  for  day  and  night,  the  tariff 
for  so  much  baggage  over  so  many  kilogrammes'  weight, 
the  tariff  for  every  circumstance  that  may  occur.  Disputes 
with  your  driver  are  not  encouraged  in  seemly  Germany. 


IN  THE  KAISER'S  COUNTRY      203 

There  are  three  kinds  of  cab  in  Berlin.  The  station  cab  is 
intended  for  much  baggage ;  besides  this  there  are  the  first- 
class  and  the  second-class  cabs.  Each  has  its  own  tariff, 
and  though  the  drivers  of  each  must  wear  the  blue  coat  and 
red  waistcoat  of  the  regulation  livery,  the  first-class  man 
must  wear  a  white  hat  and  the  second-class  man  a  black. 
The  police  sees  to  that.  It  also  lays  down  how  many  and 
what  kind  of  blankets  the  cab-horse  is  to  wear  in  summer 
and  winter  respectively.  But  Berlin's  latest  triumph  in 
cabs  is  the  taxameter.  There  is  a  little  bracket  with  the 
word  "  Free  "  which  the  cabman  hangs  out  when  he  is  dis- 
engaged. When  you  get  in  you  find  yourself  opposite  a 
little  dial.  As  the  driver  takes  in  his  "  Free,"  the  dial  starts 
off.  It  takes  note  of  every  revolution  of  the  wheels,  and 
as  these  alter  the  fare,  the  addition  is  shown  on  the  dial. 
When  you  get  out  you  read  off  the  amount  of  the  fare  ; 
there  is  nothing  to  prevent  you  giving  the  driver  more  if 
you  like,  but  there  can  be  no  possibility  of  a  dispute. 

Installed  in  your  hotel,  you  go  out  for  a  walk.  As  you 
walk  you  notice  a  number  of  kiosks  up  and  down  the 
street;  you  say  to  yourself  that  they  exist  for  advertise- 
ments. So  they  do,  but  look  at  the  advertisements.  They 
tell  you  what  is  going  on  at  the  theatres,  or  where  there  is 
music  and  dancing.  But  round  the  post  you  will  find  even 
more  characteristic  announcements.  They  tell  you  the 
nearest  ambulance,  the  nearest  hospital,  the  nearest  fire- 
alarm,  the  nearest  police-station.  And  on  every  other  one 
is  a  clock,  with  the  correct  official  time.  No  not  know- 
ing where,  no  not  knowing  when,  in  well-ordered  Germany. 

You  want  perhaps  to  send  a  packet  of  manuscript  to 
England.  You  do  it  up  in  brown  paper  and  string,  with 
the  ends  open,  and  take  it  to  the  post-office.  There  is  one 


204  GERMANY 

way  in  and  another  way  out,  and  a  policeman  stands  by  to 
see  that  you  take  the  right  one.  In  the  vestibule  there  is  a 
plan  of  the  post-office  :  it  is  a  prodigiously  big  building. 
In  Cologne,  for  example,  or  Frankfurt-on-the-Main,  the 
post-office  shames  St.  Martin's-le-Grand.  In  every  tiniest 
hamlet  the  post-office  is  as  big  as  the  rest  of  the  place  put 
together,  till  you  wonder  where  the  Government  gets  all 
the  officials  to  fill  it,  and  what  it  finds  for  them  to  do. 
You  must  study  the  plan  of  the  post-office  till  you  find  the 
right  door  and  counter  for  what  you  want.  You  find  it, 
and  take  up  your  packet.  "  Can  this  go  by  letter-post  ?  " 
"  No ;  it  is  too  big."  "  Can  it  go  by  book-post  ?  "  "  No ; 
it  is  not  printed  matter."  "  Can  it  go  by  parcel-post  ? " 
u  No ;  it  is  not  well  enough  fastened  up."  "  Then  how 
can  it  go  ? "  The  uniformed  official  contemplates  the 
covering  packet  and  then  looks  in  the  book  of  regulations. 
"  It  must  be  wrapped  up  in  oil-skin,  sealed,  and  provided 

with    a    blue  wrapper."     "  But,  in  England "     The 

official  relaxes  to  a  smile :  "  Yes,  in  England ;  but  here  we 
are  more  precise.  Oil-skinned,  sealed,  and  blue-wrappered 
must  it  unconditionally  be." 

You  slink  dejectedly  out  to  look  for  an  oil-skin  shop,  a 
sealing-wax  shop,  and  a  blue-label  shop.  Perhaps  after  all, 
though,  it  will  be  cheaper  in  the  long-run  to  give  it  to  the 
hotel  porter  to  look  after.  A  life  of  constant  storm  and 
stress  has  accustomed  the  hotel  porter  to  grapple  with 
regulations.  But  what  the  German  does  in  such  cases  I 
would  rather  not  imagine.  Happily,  he  is  blessed  with  a 
good  head  for  details,  and  takes  an  unending  pleasure  in 
learning  them.  He  will  dispute  for  hours  over  a  figure  in 
a  time-table  or  a  phrase  in  a  police  regulation  with  never- 
flagging  enjoyment ;  so  that  I  suppose  a  German  who  wants 


IN  THE  KAISER'S  COUNTRY      205 

to  send  a  parcel  to  England  first  buys  a  book  of  rules,  then 
gives  the  matter  a  week  of  looking  up  and  thinking  out 
and  talking  over,  then  reconnoitres  the  post-office,  then 
solemnly  buys  oil-skin  and  sealing-wax  and  blue-label, 
calls  his  wife  and  children  to  bear  a  hand  in  the  preparation 
of  the  sacred  packet,  and  finally  leads  them  in  triumphant 
procession,  with  a  note  of  the  weight  in  his  pocket  and  the 
exact  fee  wrapped  up  in  paper,  to  the  right  door,  the  right 
counter,  and  the  right  pigeon-hole,  and  then  triumphantly 
posts  it.  Then  he  goes  out  to  meet  his  friends  over  a  glass 
of  beer,  and  fights  his  post-parcel  o'er  again.  Yet  with  all 
exceptions  granted,  you  have  to  own  there  is  no  perplexity, 
no  confusion,  no  disorder.  Everything  fixed,  definite,  regu- 
lated— for  the  most  part  practically  and  common-sensibly 
regulated.  In  Germany  somebody  has  always  arranged 
things  for  you.  "  All  right,"  is  the  national  cry  of  the 
Englishman  all  the  world  over ;  the  German  for  it  is  "  Alles 
in  Ordnung  " — "  Everything  in  order."  But  "  All  right " 
usually  means  that  things  will  do  as  they  are ;  "  Alles  in 
Ordnung"  means  that  they  are  as  somebody  up  above  has 
ordained  that  they  shall  be. 


THE  HIGHER  NOBILITY 

S.  BARING-GOULD 

IN  the  period  of  Napoleon's  greatness,  the  main  object 
of  the  German  princes  was  the  salvation  of  their  own 
sovereignties,  at  whose  expense  mattered  little.  It  is 
difficult  to  conceive  an  attitude  more  humiliating  than  that 
assumed  by  the  princes  at  this  time.  Instead  of  rallying 
around  Austria  in  heroic  opposition  to  Napoleon,  they 
cringed  at  his  feet.  On  March  28,  1806,  in  defiance  of 
the  Constitution,  von  Dalberg,  the  Chancellor,  named  Napo- 
leon's uncle,  Cardinal  Fesch,  as  his  coadjutor  and  suc- 
cessor in  the  see  of  Mainz,  which  was  to  become  a  secular 
principality  in  the  family  of  Napoleon.  Thereupon  sixteen 
German  princes  formally  decreed  the  separation  from  the 
Empire. 

By  the  Peace  of  Presburg,  the  year  before,  the  Electors 
of  Bavaria  and  Wurtemberg  had  been  accorded  the  title  of 
king.  In  gratitude  for  this  favour  they  led  the  servile 
troop,  and  were  followed  by  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse- 
Darmstadt  and  the  princes  of  Nassau,  Hohenzollern,  Salm, 
Isenburg,  etc. 

On  August  i,  1806,  the  French  ambassador,  Bacher, 
declared  that  his  Emperor  no  longer  recognized  Germany 
as  an  empire ;  and  on  August  6th,  Francis  II.  laid  down 
the  crown  of  Charlemagne.  Thereupon  Napoleon  re- 
warded Dalberg  by  creating  him  Prince-Premier.  Of  old, 
at  the  coronation  of  a  German  Emperor,  the  herald  had 
proclaimed,  "  Where  is  a  Dalberg  ? "  and  with  the  sword 


.A*/ 
THE  HIGHER  NOBILITY          207 

Joyeuse  the  newly-crowned  Emperor  had  knighted  one 
of  that  family.  It  had  for  centuries  been  an  hereditary 
prerogative  of  the  family  of  Dalberg  to  be  the  first  to 
receive  honour  of  the  sovereign.  In  1806,  the  first  to  lift 
his  heel  against  his  Emperor  was  a  Dalberg.  The  Elector 
of  Baden,  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse,  for  their  subserviency, 
and  Joachim  Murat,  Duke  of  Berg,  were  raised  to  grand 
dukes,  with  royal  rights  and  privileges.  The  Prince  of 
Nassau-Usingen  became  a  duke,  and  the  Count  von  der 
Leyen  was  made  a  prince.  The  French  Emperor  pro- 
claimed himself  patron  of  the  Bund. 

By  decision  of  the  Rhenish  Confederacy,  Nuremberg  lost 
its  independence  and  fell  to  Bavaria ;  Heitersheim,  which  had 
belonged  to  the  German  knights,  was  annexed  to  Baden ; 
Friedberg  fell  to  Hesse-Darmstadt.  But  at  the  same  time 
a  number  of  princes  and  counts  who  had  been  made,  or 
had  made  themselves,  independent,  or  u  immediate,"  were 
"mediatized,"  /'.  <?.,  made  subjects.  Such  were  the  Princes 
of  Nassau-Orange-Fulda,  of  Hohenlohe,  Schwarzenberg, 
Lowenstein,  Leiningen,  Thurn  und  Taxis,  Salm-Reiffer- 
scheid-Krautheim,  Neuwied,  Wied-Runkel,  Dettingen, 
Fugger,  Metternich,  Truchsess,  Furstenberg,  Solms,  the 
Landgrave  of  Hesse-Homburg,  the  Dukes  of  Croy  and 
Looz-Corswarem,  many  countly,  and  all  the  remaining  ba- 
ronial families,  which  boasted  their  "  unmittelbarkeit"  or 
"  immediateness." 

One  remained,  overlooked,  when  the  map  was  re-arranged. 
The  Liechtensteins  were  in  the  Sixteenth  Century  marshals 
to  the  dukes  of  Carinthia,  and  therefore  "  ministrales  "  of 
the  house  of  Hapsburg.  Originally  an  old  Moravian  family 
of  Herren  von  Liechtenstein,  they  were  created  princes  in 
1621,  during  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  and  as  none  of  the 


208  GERMANY 

family  estates  in  Austria  were  "  immediate,"  they  bought 
the  little  country  of  Vaduz,  among  the  rocks  under  the 
Sessaplana,  on  the  upper  Rhine,  over  which  they  could 
exercise  sovereign  jurisdiction.  When  the  Rheinbund  re- 
cast the  map  of  Germany,  this  little  territory  was  by  over- 
sight left  un-mediatized,  and  to  this  day  it  remains  an  in- 
dependent principality  of  not  nine  thousand  inhabitants, 
scattered  over  three  geographical  square  miles. 

On  September  25,  1806,  the  Elector  Bishop  of  Wiirz- 
burg  joined  the  Rheinbund,  and  was  rewarded  for  his 
submission  with  the  title  of  grand  duke.  The  Elector  of 
Saxony  then  stole  in,  and  was  repaid  with  the  royal  crown 
(December  n,  1806).  It  was  now  a  race  who  could  get 
in  and  get  something.  The  Saxon  dukes  followed ;  then 
the  two  Princes  of  Reuss.  The  Dukes  of  Mecklenburg 
came  next.  Somewhat  sulkily  Oldenburg  stole  under 
cover.  By  decree  of  December  10,  1810,  Napoleon  an- 
nexed to  France  the  Duchy  of  Mecklenburg,  a  large  portion 
of  Westphalia,  and  Berg.  The  Duke  of  Aremberg  lost 
half  his  lands  to  France  and  half  to  Berg.  The  Princes  of 
Salm  also  saw  their  territories  incorporated  into  France. 
The  two  Dukes  of  Mecklenburg,  who  had  been  almost  the 
last  to  join  the  Bund,  were  the  first  to  leave  it  (1813)  and 
join  Prussia  and  Russia  against  Napoleon.  They  were  fol- 
lowed by  the  Grand  Dukes  of  Baden  and  Hesse-Darmstadt, 
the  Kings  of  Bavaria  and  Wiirtemberg.  Two  hesitated — 
the  King  of  Saxony  and  the  Grand  Duke  of  Frankfurt. 
The  former  lost  thereby  half  his  land,  the  latter  all.  The 
same  fate  attended  the  French  intruders,  the  King  of  West- 
phalia, and  the  Duke  of  Berg.  The  Duke  of  Aremberg 
and  the  Princes  of  Isenburg  and  von  und  zu  der  Leyen  and 
Salm,  who  had  been  spared  by  the  Rheinbund,  were  media- 


THE  HIGHER  NOBILITY  209 

tized  by  the  Congress  of  Vienna.  Forty-five  princes,  of 
whom  three  were  dukes  and  forty-one  counts,  also  lost 
their  independence,  and  were  forced  to  bow  under  the  rule 
of  their  more  favoured  or  fortunate  neighbours.  Lippe 
had  been  saved  from  mediatization  by  the  sagacity  of  the 
Princess  Pauline,  who  sent  the  Empress  Josephine  a  dress 
embroidered  with  blue  jays'  feathers,  and  so  bought  her 
intercession  with  Napoleon.  Mediatization  was  somewhat 
arbitrary.  Prince  Fiirstenberg  became  the  subject  of  the 
Prince  of  Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen,  whose  territory  was 
not  more  extended,  nor  his  ancestry  more  illustrious.  But 
Fiirstenberg  was  forced  to  pass  under  Hohenzollern,  and 
not  Hohenzollern  under  Fiirstenberg,  because  the  descend- 
ent  of  another  branch  of  Hohenzollern  sat  on  the  throne 
of  Prussia.  In  1849,  Prussia  mediatized  Hohenzollern- 
Hechingen  and  Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen,  and  appropri- 
ated the  principalities,  to  supply  her  with  a  convenient 
foothold  in  the  midst  of  Wiirtemberg.  Mediatization  was 
nowhere  opposed  except  at  Mergetheim,  where  the  bauers 
refused  to  give  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  King  of  Wiirtem- 
berg till  released  by  their  old  lord,  the  Archduke  Anthony 
of  Austria.  Frederick  of  Wurtemberg  marched  dragoons 
among  them  and  hung  and  shot  the  objectors.  The  mar- 
riage of  provinces  to  kingdoms  had  its  honeymoon  not  on 
union,  but  long  after. 

In  vain  did  the  mediatized  princes  protest  and  appeal  to 
Austria.  Austria  was  powerless  to  help  them. 

By  the  Act  of  the  Rheinbund  certain  rights  had  been 
reserved  to  them. 

I.  They  were  to  be  regarded  as  "ebenburtig"  with 
reigning  families — /'.  *.,  able  to  contract  marriages  with 
sovereign  houses. 


210  GERMANY 

2.  They  were  to  form  the  highest  aristocracy  in  the  land 
into  which  their  principalities  were  absorbed,  and  to  have  a 
position  in  the  House  of  Peers.     Confirmed  in  1815. 

3.  They  were  to  be  exempted  from  taxation. 

4.  They  were  to  be    allowed  to   exercise  magisterial 
rights  on  their  estates.     This   privilege  was  withdrawn  in 
1848. 

5.  They  were  "  to  bear  the  titles  they  had  borne  before 
mediatization,    with    omission   only    of    all    dignities   and 
predicates  expressive  of  their  former  relation   to  the  Em- 
pire, or  to  their  position  as  former  sovereigns  of  the  land." 
Yet  the  head  of  one  of  these  families  is  allowed  to  be  called 
u  the  reigning  prince,"  and  to  use  the  pluralis  majestaticus. 
By  decree  of  the  German  Confederation,  August  18,  1825, 
and  March  12,  1829,  confirmed  June  12,  1845,  tne  media- 
tized  princes  and  dukes  are  to  be  addressed   as  "  durch- 
laucht "  (your  serene  highness),  and  the  mediatized  counts 
as  " erlauckt"  (your  highness). 

6.  They  might  be  attended  by  a  body-guard  of  not  ex- 
ceeding thirty  men. 

The  mediatized  princes  lost  all  sources  of  revenue  which 
were  derived  from  sovereignty,  but  retained  all  that  were 
derived  from  property. 

Since  1806,  the  mediatized  princes,  called  in  German 
Standesherren,  enjoy  the  greatest  privileges  in  Prussia.  In 
the  Prussian  monarchy  there  are  seventeen ;  they  sit  in  the 
Chamber  of  Lords.  In  Silesia,  Saxony,  and  the  Lausitz, 
there  are  twenty-eight  more  "  Standeskerren"  of  which 
the  most  illustrious  is  the  House  of  Stolberg.  There  are 
other  princely  and  countly  families  in  Prussia,  but  as  they 
were  not  independent  (unmittelbar)  before  the  Rheinbund 
Act,  they  cannot  intermarry  with  royal  families,  or  even 


THE  HIGHER  NOBILITY          211 

with  the  families  of  the  mediatized  nobles.  Such  are  the 
princely  houses  of  Blucher  of  Wahlstadt,  Hatzfeld-Trach- 
enberg,  Hatzfeld-Wildenberg,  Lichnowsky,  Lynar,  Pless, 
Putbus-Wrede.  Absurd  as  it  may  seem,  it  is  yet  true,  no 
doubt,  that  a  prince  of  Salm  can  only  marry  a  princess 
Blucher  morganatically.  In  the  Austrian  monarchy  are 
many  houses  formerly  "  immediate,"  but  whose  estates 
there  were  never  "  immediate."  That  is  to  say,  houses 
which  were  immediate — say  in  Swabia — had  lands  over 
which  they  had  no  sovereign  jurisdiction  in  Austria.  Their 
lands  out  of  Austria  they  have  perhaps  lost  or  sold,  but 
they  remain  sovereign  houses  mediatized,  retaining  only  es- 
tates over  which  they  never  had  independent  authority.  In 
1825  the  Emperor  of  Austria  followed  the  example  of  the 
Rheinbund,  and  mediatized  all  these,  giving  them  the 
predicate  of  "  durcblaucht "  (serene  highness),  and  "  durch- 
laucht  hochgeborner  Fiirst"  (serene  highborn  prince).  Of 
these  there  are  forty-seven.  In  Bavaria,  by  decree  of  De- 
cember 31,  1806,  the  mediatized  princes,  counts,  and 
barons  were  deprived  of  all  independent  jurisdiction,  but 
were  given  many  great  privileges  and  a  seat  in  the  first 
house.  By  decree  of  1817,  the  ducal  house  of  Leuchten- 
berg  has  precedence  over  all  the  other  "  Standesherren" 
numbering  in  all  twenty-three. 

In  Wurtemberg  there  are  thirty-five  u  Standesberren  "  ; 
their  position  was  secured  by  royal  proclamation  December 
8,  1821.  Of  these  thirty-four  sit  in  the  House  of  Peers. 
The  Prince  of  Metternich,  who  used  to  be  peer  in  Wur- 
temberg for  the  principalities  of  Ochsenhausen  and  Win- 
neburg,  sold  them  to  the  Crown,  and  thus  ceased  to  have  a 
seat  on  the  bench. 

In  Hanover  there  are  three  peers ;  in  Baden  eight  i  in 


212  GERMANY 

Kur-Hesse  are  four ;  in  the  Grand  Duchy,  nineteen ;  in 
Nassau  are  five,  in  Oldenburg  only  the  Count  of  Bentinck. 

A  good  number  of  the  German  princes,  reigning  and 
mediatized,  derive  from  the  old  feudal  vassals  of  the  Crown. 
The  Grand  Duke  of  Baden,  for  instance,  descends  from 
the  counts  of  Zahringen  and  Ortenau,  and  they  are  clearly 
traceable  to  a  count  placed  over  the  Breisgau,  a  "  minis- 
terialis"  of  the  Emperor — an  ennobled  charcoal-burner, 
according  to  tradition.  So  also  the  Princes  of  Anhalt  de- 
rived from  a  gau-graf  of  Northern  Swabia,  and  the  King 
of  Prussia  from  a  burgrave  of  Nurnberg,  invested  with  the 
feoff  of  Henry  VI.  Others  represent  old  princely  families 
with  sovereign  blood  in  their  veins.  The  Erbachs  claim 
descent  from  Emma,  daughter  of  Charlemagne.  Unfor- 
tunately for  the  claim,  it  is  pretty  clearly  demonstrable  that 
Charlemagne  had  no  daughter  named  Emma. 

Some  again  present  princely  houses  represent  very 
ancient  families  regarded  as  noble  from  a  remote  antiquity 
— as  the  Fvirstenbergs,  Dettingens,  Hohenlohes,  Solms,  and 
Leiningens.  Others  are  of  mere  burger  origin,  as  the 
Fuggers,  weavers  of  Augsburg,  and  the  Waldbotts,  mer- 
chants of  Bremen.  Others,  again,  spring  from  alliances 
of  princes  with  mistresses.  Such  is  the  family  of  Platen. 
Clara  Elizabeth  of  Meissenbach  married  Baron  Franz  von 
Platen.  She  became  the  mistress  of  the  first  Elector  of 
Hanover,  the  father  of  George  I.  The  husband,  for  ac- 
commodating the  Elector  with  his  wife,  was  created  a 
Count  of  the  Empire,  and  the  post-office  was  made  hered- 
itary in  the  family.  The  son  of  Countess  Platen — 
whether  the  Elector  or  the  Count  was  the  father  nobody 
knows — married  a  daughter  of  General  von  Uffeln,  and  she 
became  a  mistress  of  George  I.,  but  was  deposed  for  the 


THE  HIGHER  NOBILITY          213 

sister  of  Count  Platen,  married  to  Baron  von  Kielmann- 
segge,  created  by  the  King  Countess  of  Arlington.  The 
mediatized  Counts  of  Wallmoden  had  a  similar,  and  not 
more  savoury,  origin  for  their  "  immediateness." 

After  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  Austria  created  the  post- 
master family  of  Thurn  und  Taxis  princely  and  immediate. 
The  old  Duchess  of  Orleans,  a  princess  palatine  by  birth, 
wrote  :  "  A  prince  of  Taxis !  This  is  a  wonderful 
princedom  indeed  !  If  you  want  a  pack  of  princes  of  this 
sort,  you  can  create  them  by  the  dozen."  In  1708  she 
wrote  about  the  newly-created  Free-imperial-counts  of 
Wurmbrand  :  "  Of  the  county  of  Wurmbrand  I  never 
heard  in  all  my  life ;  it  must  be  something  newly  cooked, 
or  Austrian."  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  numbers  of 
ancient  families,  as  the  Guelfs,  Wettiners,  and  Holsteiners, 
should  feel  indignant  to  have  to  rank  among  such,  and  to 
give  these  newly-fledged  princes  a  seat  beside  them  in  the 
Diet.  If  the  Protestant  princes  did  not  remonstrate  at 
this  privilege  being  freely  given  as  a  reward  for  conversion, 
it  was  only  because  they  wanted  the  same  favour  awarded 
them  for  their  sons  by  mistresses,  or  by  morganatic  wives. 
When  the  Emperor  offered  the  title  of  prince  to  Count 
Anthony  Gunther,  of  Oldenburg,  of  the  illustrious  House 
of  Holstein,  "No,  thank  you,"  he  said;  "I  had  rather 
enter  at  the  head  of  the  counts  than  bring  up  the  tail  of 
the  princes."  With  an  outburst  of  rage  and  contempt,  a 
Count  of  Orange-Nassau  flung  behind  him  one  of  the 
newly-cooked  princes  who  was  entering  the  council-cham- 
ber of  the  Emperor  before  him,  bitterly  exclaiming,  "  Ap- 
preneZ)  monsieur,  que  des  princes  comme  vous  marcbent  apres  des 
comtes  comme  nous" 

The  recruiting  of  the  "immediate"  nobility  went  on 


214  GERMANY 

with  great  activity  during  the  320  years  since  the  first  patent 
was  given  to  the  Croys,  in  1486,  to  the  year  1804,  when  the 
Trautmannsdorfs  closed  the  series.  In  that  period  twenty- 
nine  diplomas  have  been  issued  creating  Princes  of  the  Em- 
pire, and  twenty-three  making  Counts  of  the  Empire,  all 
"  immediate."  The  venerable  houses  of  Stolberg  in  Prussia, 
and  Castell  and  Ortenburg  in  Bavaria,  are  the  only  three 
among  the  mediatized  which  do  not  owe  their  origin  to 
Austria.  Isenburg,  Leiningen,  Solms,  and  Wittgenstein 
were  indeed  old  Counts  of  the  Empire  before  the  introduc- 
tion of  patents,  but  they  were  made  princely  by  Austria  in 
1743,  1779,  1742,  and  1792  respectively.  For  a  long  time 
the  Herren  von  or  zu  der  Lippe  refused  to  be  ennobled  by 
patent.  Their  nobility  dated  from  the  remotest  antiquity, 
and  they  exercised  jurisdiction  over  their  retainers  and 
vassals  under  feoff  to  the  see  of  Paderborn  and  the  house 
of  Hesse-Cassel.  At  the  Reformation  they  took  the  title 
of  count  but  it  was  not  till  1789  that  the  Count  of  Lippe- 
Detmold  condescended  to  accept  a  diploma  from  Joseph  II. 
creating  him  a  prince. 

Notwithstanding  the  dying  out  of  many  hundreds  of 
illustrious  immediate,  princely,  and  countly  houses,  the 
Austrian  factory  had  worked  so  vigorously  that,  at  the 
breaking  out  of  the  Revolution,  there  were  300  free  im- 
perial princes  and  counts,  and  several  thousand  immediate 
barons  and  knights,  who  did  not  indeed  enjoy  a  seat  on  the 
bench  of  princes,  but  exercised  almost  absolute  sovereignty 
in  their  petty  estates.  Of  these  there  were  all  degrees, 
from  the  powerful  Elector-Kings  of  Brandenburg-Prussia 
and  Hanover-England  to  the  tiniest  counts  and  barons  and 
knights  lording  it  over  their  little  patches  of  land  and  hand- 
fuls  of  bauen.  The  sovereign  Count  of  Leinburg-Styrum- 


THE  HIGHER  NOBILITY          215 

Wilhelmsdorf,  in  Franconia,  had  a  standing  army  of 
hussars,  consisting  of  a  colonel,  nine  lower  officers  and  two 
privates.  He  published,  however,  his  "  Court  Gazette," 
and  instituted  an  order  in  his  diminutive  realm.  Baron 
Grote,  in  the  Harz,  reigned  over  one  farm ;  and  when 
Frederic  the  Great  came  there,  he  met  him  with  a  fraternal 
embrace,  saying,  "  Voila  deux  souverains  qui  se  recontrent" 

The  Rheinbund  reduced  the  list  of  three  hundred 
sovereigns  to  about  thirty  ;  the  spiritual  princes  had  dis- 
appeared wholly.  But  the  Baron  von  der  Leyen  was  made 
a  prince  by  the  Bund,  and  in  1837  the  house  of  Bentheim 
was  accorded  the  same  honour  by  Prussia. 

The  word  "  Adel"  which  we  translate  Noble^  has  in 
German  a  signification  more  extended.  There  are  the 
"koher  Adel"  and  the  " nieder  Adel"  To  the  former 
category  belong  all  those  families  which  are  princely,  and 
can  mate  only  among  themselves  or  into  the  foreign 
sovereign  houses — the  families  which,  as  von  Stein  coarsely 
said,  will  serve  as  a  stud  for  Russia,  and  not  for  Russia 
only.  To  the  latter  category  belong  all  counts,  barons, 
and  "  vons  " — all,  that  is,  who  have  a  right  to  bear  a  coat- 
of-arms,  and  are  reckoned  in  England  as  gentlemen  by  birth. 
There  are,  however,  princes  who  hover  in  an  ambiguous 
position  between  these  classes,  princes  to  whom  the  predicate 
of  durcblaucht  (" your  serene  highness")  is  accorded,  but 
who  are  not  regarded  as  "  ebenburtig "  with  other  serene 
highnesses,  or  even  with  countly  highnesses.  For  instance, 
the  countly  houses  of  Isenburg-Philippseich,  of  Isenburg- 
Budingen,  and  of  Erbach,  belong  to  the  very  highest 
stratum  of  the  German  aristocracy,  ranking  at  court  among 
sovereign  princes;  but  the  princely  houses  of  Blucher, 
Hatzfeldt,  Lichnowsky,  Lynar,  Pless,  Putbus,  and  Wrede 


2i6  GERMANY 

do  not,  in  this  respect.  A  Prince  Bismarck,  for  instance, 
could  not  marry  into  a  family  of  a  mediatized  baron. 
The  Bismarcks,  though  made  princely,  are  not  made 
u  ebenburtig  "  with  the  families  to  whom  the  privilege  of 
mating  with  royalty  was  accorded  by  Act  of  June  8,  1815. 

If  any  member  of  one  of  the  reigning  or  mediatized 
families  contracts  a  marriage  with  a  person  below  his  rank, 
the  marriage  is  entitled  morganatic.  It  is  performed,  in 
church  by  priest  or  pastor,  but  the  sons  are  mules;  they 
neither  inherit  the  rank  nor  reversion  of  estates  of  the 
family,  nor  can  they  continue  the  pedigree.  The  morga- 
natic wife  is  no  wife  in  the  eye  of  the  law,  because  not 
acknowledged  by  the  family ;  and  the  families  of  the  upper 
nobility  are  allowed  to  make  rules  among  themselves  barring 
or  licensing  marriages.  The  union  with  the  morganatic 
wife,  be  it  remembered,  has  been  blessed  by  the  Church, 
and  sealed  with  solemn  vows  of  mutual  fidelity  before  God, 
publicly  taken.  The  "  unebenburtlge  "  wife  who  gives  her 
hand  to  a  prince  does  so  trusting  not  to  the  law,  but  to 
his  honour  as  a  gentleman  and  to  his  oath  as  a  Christian, 
and  the  prince  who  takes  advantage  of  his  legal  privilege  to 
throw  her  aside  when  a  more  profitable  match  presents, 
forfeits  his  rights  to  be  regarded  as  one  or  the  other. 

I  know  the  case  of  a  prince,  the  member  of  one  of  the 
first  mediatized  families  in  Germany,  who  in  an  access  of 
youthful  ardour  married  an  actress.  He  sacrificed  for  her 
his  title  and  every  office  about  court.  She  was  his  wife  be- 
fore God,  their  union  had  been  blessed  by  the  Catholic 
Church,  and  he  would  not  appear  among  his  class  without 
her  at  his  side.  They  live  together  now  as  Herr  and  Frau 

von  X .  Her  charms  have  withered,  and  she  has  sunk 

into  exacting  and  querulous  middle  age.  But  he  stands 


THE  HIGHER  NOBILITY          217 

loyally  by  her,  enduring  all  her  humours,  political  life  closed 
to  him,  association  with  his  equals  barred,  but  without  a 
thought  of  casting  her  aside  to  emancipate  himself  from 
the  false  position  in  which  he  has  placed  himself.  O  si  sic 
omnes  ! 

A  member  of  the  German  high  nobility  towers,  in  his 
own  opinion  and  in  German  law,  above  our  most  ancient 
coronetted  families — and  by  what  right  ?  By  decree  of  the 
Rheinbund  !  A  Howard,  a  Percy,  a  Neville,  is  not  fit  to 
mate  with  a  Fugger,  a  Waldbott,  or  a  Platen. 

The  instance  of  the  Fuggers  is  crucial. 

A  weaver  of  Graben,  near  Augsburg,  in  the  Fifteenth 
Century,  was  the  founder  of  this  family.  A  son  was  made 
a  gentleman  by  Frederic  III.  in  1452,  but  this  branch  died 
out  in  1583.  The  second  son,  Jacob  Fugger,  left  seven 
sons,  whom  Maximilian  I.  ennobled.  The  Emperor 
pawned  to  the  Fuggers  the  country  of  Kirchberg  and  the 
lordship  of  Weissenhorn  for  70,000  florins.  As  the  money 
was  not  forthcoming  to  redeem  the  estates,  Charles  V. 
created  the  brothers  Anthony  and  Raimund  counts,  and 
made  the  lands  over  to  them  for  ever.  Though  Counts  of 
the  Empire,  the  Fuggers  stuck  to  the  shop,  and  continued 
their  looms.  One  branch  of  the  family  was  made  "  imme- 
diate "  by  Francis  II.  in  1803,  but  it  was  mediatized  in 
1805;  thus,  it  enjoyed  its  immunity  for  two  years,  and  in 
virtue  thereof  a  Prince  of  Fugger- Wellerstein,  a  descend- 
ant of  the  old  Augsburg  weaver,  would  scorn  to  marry  into 
any  English  family  except  the  royal  family.  One  of  our 
ducal  houses  could  only  furnish  him  with  a  morganatic 
mate.  Since  the  Rheinbund,  other  houses  have  been 
mediatized.  Hohenzollern-Hechingen,  and  Hohenzollern- 
Sigmaringen  went  in  1849,  Saxe-Gotha,  Anhalt-Kothen, 


218  GERMANY 

Anhalt-Bernburg,  Hesse-Homburg,  Hesse-Cassel,  Hanover, 
Nassau,  are  gone  either  into  limbo  or  among  the  mediatized. 
Reuss-Lobenstein,  Isenberg  and  Leyen,  have  also  had  to 
shuffle  off  their  mortal  coil  of  "  unmittelbarkeit"  Others 
must  follow  in  good  time.  A  few  have  sought  to  buy 
prolongation  of  life  by  marrying  Prussian  princesses,  or 
protection  by  union  with  daughters  of  the  Czar.  But  their 
time  will  come  ;  Prussia  is  prepared  to  address  them  in  the 
words  of  Lady  Macbeth  : 

Stand  not  upon  the  order  of  your  going, 
But  go  at  once. 


THE  LOWER  NOBILITY 

S.  SPRING-GOULD 

IN  the  Fourteenth  Century  the  Emperors  began  to  create 
nobles,  by  patents,  for  the  same  consideration  that 
made  James  I.  create  baronets.  The  Emperor  Wen- 
ceslas  the  Fool  ennobled  all  kind  of  rabble.  Sigismund 
sold  titles.  Under  his  successor  Ferdinand,  a  chimney- 
sweep was  created  a  baron.  It  was  the  age  of  the  Brief adel. 
Patrician  families  like  those  of  Ebner,  Kress,  Haller, 
Behaim,  Holzschuher,  Roth,  etc.,  some  by  patent,  some 
without,  adopted  the  predicate  "  von  "  under  the  impression 
that  this  particle  betokened  gentility ;  and  they  blossomed 
into  Ebner  von  Eschenbach,  Kress  von  Kressenstein, 
Haller  von  Hallerstein,  Behaim  von  Schwarzbach,  Holz- 
schuher von  Anspach,  Roth  von  Schreckenstein,  after 
estates  'they  had  inherited  or  purchased.  Others  prefixed 
the  von  to  their  family  names,  whether  appropriately  or 
not,  as  "  von  Weber,"  "  von  Deuzlinger,"  which  are  as 
absurd  as  "  of  Weaver "  and  "  of  Londoner."  Many 
bought  or  were  granted  baronial  titles,  and  assumed  the 
pearl  coronet  of  a  Freiherr,  who  had  never  actually  held  a 
freehold.  Members  of  trade  guilds  who  had  found  their 
way  into  the  council  of  their  town  received  patents  of 
gentility ;  they  might  put  a  "  von  "  before  their  names,  and 
adopt  a  coronet  of  three  strawberry  leaves  and  two  pearls. 

The  grant  of  arms  and  the  prefix  of  "  von  "  in  Germany 
was  and  is  precisely  like  the  grant  of  arms  made  in  England 


220  GERMANY 

by  the  College  of  Heralds.  In  Germany  a  man  can 
scarcely  paint  a  coat-of-arms  on  his  carriage  and  put  a 
"  von  "  before  his  name  unless  he  has  an  hereditary  or  ac- 
quired right  to  both.  The  ordinary  gentleman,  untitled, 
uses  a  coronet,  which  is  the  same  as  that  we  attribute  to  a 
marquis,  ;'.  *.,  three  strawberry  leaves  and  two  pearls.  The 
coronet  of  a  Margraf  in  Germany  has  three  strawberry 
leaves  and  six  pearls.  The  princes  alone  can  raise  a  burger 
out  of  his  class  and  make  a  gentleman  of  him.  They  very 
often  confer  gentility  for  life,  so  that  the  person  ennobled 
bears  the  "  von  "  before  his  name,  but  his  sons  do  not.  A 
burger  blossoms  into  Herr  von  Sauerkraut,  but  his  sons  fall 
back  into  Sauerkraut  and  burgertbum  again. 

The  old  Freiherren  were  the  ancient  landed  gentry — in 
Swabia  and  Franconia  obtaining  independence  over  their 
estates,  like  little  princes.  In  1791,  the  Margravate  of 
Anspach-Baireuth  fell  to  Prussia  through  the  surrender  of 
the  last  Margrave,  Karl  Friedrich,  who  married  Lady 
Craven,  after  she  had  lived  with  him  as  his  mistress  for 
some  years.  The  two  principalities  were  given  a  new 
constitution,  and  the  liberties  of  the  free  knights  in  them 
were  curtailed.  Three  independent  barons  were  obliged  to 
surrender  their  sovereignty  over  their  little  domains.  The 
only  opposition  encountered  was  in  the  cantons  of  Altmuhl 
and  Gebirg.  Portions  of  Franconia  and  Swabia  fell  to 
Bavaria,  portions  swarming  with  these  "  immediate " 
families.  Their  independence  was  summarily  abolished. 
Those  in  the  Rhenish  provinces  were  extinguished  by 
Napoleon  in  1805. 

Since  the  surrender  of  the  Imperial  crown  by  Francis  II. 
there  have  been  no  fresh  creations  of  Freiherren.  Pub- 
lishers, as  Tauchnitz,  chemists,  as  Liebig,  tailors,  as  Stulz, 


THE  LOWER  NOBILITY  221 

have  been  made  barons;  but  a  modern  baron  is  not  the 
equivalent  of  an  ancient  Freiherr.  A  baron  created  by  a 
Grand-Duke  since  the  dissolution  of  the  Empire,  has  a 
right  to  bear  a  seven-pearled  coronet,  but  the  new-baked 
noble  cannot  take  his  place  in  the  close  aristocratic  society 
of  the  town  he  inhabits.  The  baron  hovers  in  gauche  dis- 
comfort between  the  burger  and  the  adel;  he  is  the  bat  of 
society,  neither  altogether  bird  nor  beast,  and  not  an  inviting 
specimen  of  either.  In  the  theatre  he  takes  a  loge  in  the 
first  circle,  instead  of  in  the  burger  range  of  boxes,  but  he 
sits  there  uneasily ;  he  has  lost  his  old  companions,  and 
his  new  give  him  the  cold  shoulder.  Princes,  like  the 
Almighty,  love  to  create  out  of  nothing;  but  their  crea- 
tions, unlike  His,  are  not  always  "  very  good."  The  Ger- 
man baron  newly  made  stands  on  the  same  level  as  the 
English  knight.  He  is  perhaps  a  gentleman  by  birth,  he  is 
more  probably  a  successful  grocer  or  corn-factor. 

During  the  Middle  Ages  the  landed  gentry  had  been  a 
check  upon  the  princes.  The  latter  could  only  exercise 
their  sovereignty  with  consent  of  the  chambers  in  their 
provinces  in  the  matter  of  raising  taxes  and  imposing  laws. 
After  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  when  the  French  fever  set 
in  over  Germany,  the  princes  sought  not  merely  to  copy 
French  fashions,  but  also  French  despotism.  The  extrava- 
gance of  their  courts  made  it  necessary  for  them  to  impose 
huge  burdens  on  their  lands,  and  such  imposition  the  landed 
Freiherren  opposed.  The  princes,  therefore,  set  deliber- 
ately to  work  to  extirpate  them.  This  they  effected  by 
degrees,  by  involving  them  in  extravagances,  making  them 
attend  their  courts  and  there  dissipate  their  fortune,  and 
then  buying  their  land.  In  Oldenburg,  at  the  beginning  of 
the  Eighteenth  Century,  there  were  fifty-three  noble  estates, 


222  GERMANY 

held  by  old  families  of  gentle  blood,  the  Westerholz  and 
Mundel,  Mausingen  and  Fichenhold,  Knigge,  Rhaden, 
Steding,  and  others.  Nearly  all  of  these  have  died  out  or 
lost  their  estates.  Two  that  survive,  the  Wehlaus  and 
Westerloys,  have  so  sunk  in  the  world  that  they  are  now 
represented  by  farmers,  and  have  abandoned  their  claim  to 
be  regarded  as  gentry.  In  Anhalt  Dessau,  Prince  Leopold, 
who  married  the  apothecary's  daughter,  bought  up  all  the 
estates  in  his  land,  and  those  of  the  nobility  who  demurred 
to  sell  he  drove  out  of  the  principality,  and  took  their 
estates  from  them  at  a  price  he  fixed.  Thus  he  got  rid  of 
the  Barons  von  Grote,  the  Harslebens,  Schillings,  Krosigks, 
and  many  others.  The  Prince  of  Bernberg  did  the  same. 
He  took  their  lands  from  the  von  Geuderns,  Erlachs,  and 
Einsiedenlers,  etc.  The  same  policy  was  pursued  by  the 
Prince  of  Kothen.  He  also  was  not  satisfied  till  he  reigned 
alone  over  batters^  with  a  nobility  hanging  about  his  court, 
and  dependent  on  his  bounty  as  his  chief  foresters,  mar- 
shals, chamberlains,  etc. 

In  Schiller's  letters  we  get  a  picture  of  the  old  landed 
gentry  as  they  were,  and  as  they  were  being  made.  On 
December  8,  1787,  he  wrote  from  Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt : 
"  I  have  met  in  this  neighbourhood  with  some  interesting 
families.  For  instance,  in  the  village  of  Hochheim  is  a 
noble  family,  consisting  of  five  young  ladies — in  all,  ten 
persons — living  in  the  old  patriarchal  way,  or  reviving  old 
knightly  manners.  No  one  in  the  family  wears  anything 
which  is  not  of  home  manufacture.  Shoes,  cloth,  silk,  all 
the  furniture,  all  the  necessaries  of  life,  and  almost  all  its 
luxuries,  are  grown  or  manufactured  on  the  property,  many 
by  the  hands  of  the  ladies,  as  in  patriarchal  days  and  in  the 
times  of  chivalry.  The  greatest  exterior  cleanliness  and 


THE  LOWER  NOBILITY  223 

order,  and  even  display  and  beauty,  please  the  eye ;  of  the 
ladies,  some  are  young,  and  all  are  simple  and  true,  like  the 
nature  in  which  they  live."  The  European  war  was  felt 
severely  by  the  lesser  German  nobility.  Their  estates  had 
been  burdened  by  extravagant  living,  and  they  were  ill- 
prepared  for  a  season  of  invasion  and  its  consequent  evils. 
On  the  Rhine,  in  Hesse,  in  Baden,  in  the  Palatinate,  the 
Code  Napoleon  was  introduced,  and  subdivision  of  prop- 
erty was  made  compulsory.  In  Prussia,  before  this,  Fred- 
erick William  had  done  his  utmost  to  break  up  the  prop- 
erties and  destroy  the  privileges  of  the  aristocracy,  and  for 
much  the  same  reasons  as  other  princes,  because  they  in- 
terfered with  despotic  government. 

But  it  was  not  only  where  the  Code  Napoleon  was  intro- 
duced, that  lands  were  divided  and  subdivided  till  the 
owners  sank  from  being  nobles  to  batters.  Such  a  sub- 
division had  been  universal  in  Germany ;  fought  against, 
indeed,  in  Westphalia  and  Saxony,  but  prevailing  freely 
elsewhere.  Great  houses  had  melted  into  a  hundred  little 
farms.  But  in  the  Seventeenth  Century  it  was  fully  seen 
that  this  equal  cutting  up  of  land  was  ruinous ;  and  every- 
where the  gentry  were  adopting  primogeniture  or  some 
other  system  by  which  properties  might  be  held  together. 
But  it  was  too  late.  The  introduction  of  the  Code  Napo- 
leon sealed  the  fate  of  the  gentry  on  the  Rhine.  Elsewhere 
they  were  ruined  by  the  events  of  1848. 

The  revolution  in  that  year  produced  an  electrical  effect 
in  Germany.  On  February  27,  at  a  gathering  at  Mann- 
heim, four  demands  were  made — freedom  of  the  press, 
trial  by  jury,  national  representation,  and  general  con- 
scription. A  mass  deputation  carried  these  demands  on 
March  i  before  the  Baden  Chamber.  A  few  days  later, 


224  GERMANY 

the  abolition  of  the  freedom  of  the  aristocracy,  and  of  the 
remains  of  feudal  obligations,  of  copyholds  and  ground- 
rents  was  demanded.  Speedily  the  whole  of  Germany  was 
in  commotion ;  the  bauers  joined  the  revolution  started 
by  town  republican  clubs,  with  the  double  object  of  getting 
rid  of  ground-rents  and  of  expelling  the  Jews  from  the 
country.  In  the  National  Assembly  at  Frankfurt  a  violent 
attack  on  the  nobility  was  led  by  Mohl,  Rosier,  and  Jacob 
Grimm ;  and  the  nobility  as  an  order  was  abolished  by 
a  majority  of  fourteen.  But  whilst  the  National  Assem- 
bly was  discussing  the  rights  of  man,  natural  equality, 
and  the  bases  of  authority,  the  princess,  who  had  cowered 
before  the  storm,  put  their  heads  together  and  organized 
opposition.  When  the  deputation  of  the  Assembly  came 
to  Cologne  to  meet  the  King  of  Prussia,  and  lay  before 
him  its  resolutions,  Frederick  William  curtly  told  them 
not  to  leave  out  of  their  calculations  the  fact  that  there 
were  princes  in  Germany,  and  that  he  was  one  of  them. 
A  volley  dispersed  the  rioters  in  Berlin ;  the  bauers  grew 
suspicious  of  the  town  rabble,  and  sided  with  the  sov- 
ereign. The  revolution  came  to  an  end;  but  it  had  left  its 
victims,  especially  in  the  South.  The  Grand  Dukes,  in 
the  agony  of  their  alarm,  had  flung  the  gentry  to  the 
wolves,  and  many  were  reduced  to  poverty  by  the  loss  of 
their  property  in  land.  All  rights  of"frobn"  were  absolutely 
abolished,  without  compensation  to  the  lord  of  the  manor ; 
and  the  State  took  measures  to  convert  the  copyhold  land 
of  the  bauer  into  a  freehold  estate,  by  making  its  allodifica- 
tion  compulsory  should  the  tenant  be  able  and  willing  to 
commute.  In  Austria  all  charges  on  land  were  abolished 
by  a  stroke  of  the  pen  on  September  2,  1848.  In  Bavaria 
the  work  of  allodification  was  begun  by  a  law  passed  June 


THE  LOWER  NOBILITY  225 

4,  1848;  in  Wiirtembug  on  April  14,  1848;  in  Baden  on 
April  10  and  July  31,  1848.  In  Kurhessen  all  feoffs,  and 
ground-rents  and  charges  on  land,  together  with  other 
manorial  rights,  were  abolished  on  August  26,  1848,  the 
landlords  receiving  as  indemnity  from  three  to  five  per  cent, 
of  the  value  of  their  estates.  This  was  done  in  Waldeck, 
in  Sigmaringen,  in  Saxe-Weimar,  and  elsewhere.  In 
almost  every  case  all  personal  services  were  done  away 
with  without  compensation.  To  assist  the  peasants  in  con- 
verting their  farms  into  freeholds,  the  Saxon  Government 
established  a  fund  for  the  redemption  of  the  land  under 
Government  guarantee.  In  1850,  a  similar  bank  was 
established  in  Berlin.  Baden  and  Hesse  followed. 

As  the  greatest  part  of  the  estates  of  the  gentry  had 
been  let,  there  remained  to  them  now  only  the  home 
farm  and  the  sum  in  money  they  received  from  the  State 
for  their  lands  which  had  been  let  and  leased.  The  cap- 
ital disappeared,  and  their  sons  are  left  with  a  little  patch 
of  land  about  the  ancestral  castle,  and  no  funds  on  which 
to  keep  up  the  stately  mansion.  The  result  of  the 
allodification  has  therefore  been  to  sever  the  gentry  from 
the  soil.  They  cannot  live  all  the  year  round  in  the 
country ;  they  go  for  a  few  weeks  in  the  summer  to  the 
schloss^  carrying  with  them  sufficient  furniture,  and  there 
they  picnic  for  a  while.  They  have  lost  their  interest  in 
the  peasants,  and  the  peasants  in  them.  They  seek  sit- 
uations under  Government  as  judges,  or  make  the  army 
their  profession,  and  live  in  offices  on  their  salaries  rather 
than  starve  in  their  ancestral  halls.  In  the  south  of 
Germany,  where  the  free  Imperial  knights  were  most  num- 
erous and  most  independent,  their  descendants  are  most 
impoverished  and  most  dependent  on  State  employ.  In 


226  GERMANY 

the  North  of  Germany  the  Freiherren  are  still  landed 
gentry,  but  they  have  not  clung  to  acres  with  the  same 
tenacity  as  the  nobles  and  squires  of  England.  In  1861, 
there  were  in  all  Prussia  12,543  knightly  estates,  but  of 
these  only  394  had  been  in  a  family  over  100  years.  In 
1858,  in  the  Prussian  House  of  Lords,  there  were  only 
seventy-seven  landed  proprietors  holding  old  family  estates : 
the  remaining  eighty-nine  were  life  peers. 

In  North  Germany  the  landed  gentry  suffered  by  the 
allodification  of  their  farms,  but  not  to  the  same  extent :  the 
process  was  less  rapid,  and  more  moderate.  In  the  north 
the  nobles  are  not  infrequently  manufacturers ;  dye-works, 
spinning-mills,  distilleries,  rise  within  a  few  yards  of  the 
castle.  The  reaction  after  1848  helped  the  Prussian 
nobility  to  obtain  some  new  privileges. 

In  the  German  courts,  the  nobility  not  mediatized  were 
treated  with  sovereign  contempt.  Frederic,  the  fat  King 
of  Wurtemburg,  the  smallest  of  kings  and  the  smallest  of 
snobs,  did  his  utmost  to  drive  the  few  that  lingered  on  in 
Swabia  out  of  his  realm  by  making  residence  in  it  intoler- 
able. He  published  a  decree  that  no  nobleman  of  his  newly 
manufactured  kingdom  should  be  allowed  to  leave  his 
district  for  more  than  a  week  without  leave  of  the  burger 
functionaries  of  the  parish. 

There  is  something  not  a  little  insulting  in  the  way  in 
which  the  old  landed  gentry — counts  and  barons  of  as 
good,  if  not  better  blood  than  their  sovereigns — are  treated 
when  they  visit  court.  Their  aristocratic  rank  is  ignored, 
military  rank  alone  is  recognized.  Rank  throughout  Ger- 
many is  military,  but  certain  civil  offices  are  reckoned  as 
military  offices.  Thus  a  judge  ranks  as  a  major-general, 
and  a  lord-in-waiting  as  a  colonel.  The  princes  of  the 


THE  LOWER  NOBILITY  227 

royal  or  grand-ducal  family  and  the  mediatized  princes  in 
their  territory  are  above  rank. 

The  head  of  a  princely  family  alone  is  called  Furst^  the 
other  brothers  and  sons  are  Prinzen.  So  also  only  the 
reigning  duke  is  a  Herzog  the  other  brothers  are  Grafen. 
But  the  children  of  a  count  are  counts  and  countesses,  and 
of  a  baron  are  barons  and  baronesses.  Every  writer  on 
the  German  nobility  has  urged  the  abandonment  of  this 
senseless  adhesion  to  titles  by  the  junior  branches  of  noble 
families.  It  has  a  mischievous  effect.  In  England,  where 
only  the  eldest  son  inherits  the  title  of  his  father,  the  other 
members  of  the  family  melt  into  the  general  mass  of  the 
English  gentry,  and  in  another  generation  are  altogether 
one  with  it.  In  Germany,  the  retention  of  title  by  every 
one  who  derives  from  a  noble  family  makes  of  the  aristoc- 
racy a  caste  which  associates  only  with  its  own  members, 
and  is  absolutely  cut  off  from  the  class  below.  I  knew  a 
case  of  a  baron,  so  poor  that  he  was  glad  to  act  as  gardener 
and  not  above  accepting  a  cigar,  living  in  a  poor  cottage. 
But  his  associates,  and  the  associates  of  the  baroness  his 
wife,  were  noble.  They  were  received  into  the  first  circle, 
but  never  set  foot  inside  the  door  of  the  burgher.  This 
caste  severance  is  the  more  mischievous,  because  courtesy 
of  manner  and  gentlemanliness  of  feeling  are  both  a  tradi- 
tion of  the  aristocracy.  It  is  because  the  burger  has  not 
associated  with  a  polished  class,  but  been  left  to  stew  in  his 
own  fat,  that  he  has  never  been  able  to  emancipate  himself 
from  mediaeval  boorishness.  The  incessant  circulation  of 
social  currents  in  England  keeps  the  whole  body  sweet. 


VILLAGE  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

A.  F.  SLACK 

IT  is  quite  possible  for  the  traveller  to  spend  several 
very  pleasant  months  in  Germany  and  to  return  home 
none  the  wiser  as  to  the  real  life  of  the  people  of  the 
country.  In  the  large  towns,  as  Berlin  and  Hamburg, 
Dresden  and  Heidelberg,  visitors  are  so  numerous,  and  in 
the  hotels  and  pensions  their  requirements  are,  as  a  rule,  so 
well  understood,  that  the  tourist  can  pursue  any  route  he 
may  desire  without  more  deviation  from  his  usual  mode  of 
living  than  is  sufficient  to  give  him  a  pleasing  sense  of  the 
change  and  exhilaration  afforded  by  foreign  travel.  Far 
otherwise  is  it  in  the  remote  country  villages.  The  few 
foreigners  who  penetrate  thither  are,  from  their  very  strange- 
ness, a  source  of  interest  to  all  the  inhabitants  round  about, 
and  they  have  an  opportunity  for  studying  the  people  as 
they  really  are,  the  habits  and  customs  of  the  peasantry, 
and  of  that  distinctly  German  race,  the  German  middle 
class,  which  is  denied  to  the  more  favoured  traveller  who 
pursues  his  comfortable  way  from  hotel  to  hotel,  or  from 
pension  to  pension,  in  the  great  historic  towns.  Let  us 
turn  aside,  then,  for  a  little  from  the  beaten  track,  and 
watch  the  country  people  at  home  in  a  remote  little  village 
of  Lower  Silesia. 

Our  village  consists  of  a  single  wide  road,  flanked  on 
either  side  by  fair-sized  houses  of  irregular  shape,  very 
plain,  but  for  the  most  part  roomy  and  well  built.  The 
custom  of  living  in  flats,  so  common  in  towns,  does  not 


VILLAGE  LIFE  IN  GERMANY      229 

prevail  here ;  every  peasant  has  his  own  house,  often  roomy 
and  convenient,  but  very  sparsely  furnished.  Up  this  one 
street  the  writer  drove  on  a  brilliant  evening  in  early  June, 
and,  alighting  from  her  drosckki  at  the  Pfarrhaus,  or  parson- 
age, was  received,  with  the  kindly  welcome  so  invariably 
accorded  in  Germany,  as  an  inmate  within  its  walls.  The 
Pfarrhaus  is  the  most  pretentious  of  the  village  houses,  and 
must  claim,  accordingly,  precedence  in  description. 

We  ascend  a  long  flight  of  stone  steps  and  enter  the 
front  hall.  It  is  a  large,  bare  space  with  boarded  floor, 
devoid  of  furniture  other  than  several  large  cupboards. 
The  dining-room  next  claims  our  attention.  It  also  is  en- 
tirely uncarpeted,  its  main  furniture  consisting  of  a  long, 
narrow  table  of  ash  wood,  very  much  of  the  kind  that 
might  be  found  in  an  English  dairy,  and  scrubbed,  like  the 
boards,  to  surpassing  whiteness.  It  is  quite  without  cloth 
or  ornament  of  any  kind.  On  either  side  of  it,  ranged 
against  the  wall,  are  cane-bottomed  chairs.  At  the  end  of 
the  room  is  a  small  table  of  mahogany,  rather  more  orna- 
mental, and  adorned  with  the  best  tea-tray.  The  German 
Esszimmer  is  for  use,  not  ornament. 

The  upper  rooms  of  the  Pfarrhaus  all  open  one  into  the 
other,  and  two  of  these  are  drawing-rooms.  The  drawing- 
room,  or  Wobnzimmer,  is  the  one  part  of  a  German  house 
which  is  permissible  to  decorate,  and  upon  it  the  Hausfrau 
lavishes  her  chief  care  and  thought.  Beneath  our  feet,  as 
usual,  are  the  bare  boards,  here,  however,  crossed  obliquely 
by  narrow  strips  of  carpet,  which  run  like  footpaths  to  the 
chief  pieces  of  furniture.  One  runs  from  the  door  to  the 
sofa,  which  is  the  seat  of  honour  par  excellence,  and  which, 
when  visitors  are  present,  must  be  devoted  to  the  greatest 
lady  among  them.  Another  strip  of  carpet  runs  from  the 


230  GERMANY 

sofa  to  the  piano,  and  another,  again,  from  the  piano  to 
one  or  more  of  the  tables  which  stand  about,  covered  with 
crimson  cloths,  or  without  covering,  and  polished  to  an  ex- 
cellent brightness. 

But  the  most  essential  of  the  drawing-room  is  not  the 
tables  or  chairs,  it  is  not  the  sofa  nor  even  the  piano,  it  is 
the  handsome  mahogany  wardrobe.  The  other  things  may 
be  cheap  and  common,  but  this  is  of  the  best ;  chairs  and 
tables  are  profaned  by  daily  use,  but  the  wardrobe  is  to 
look  at.  The  wardrobe  or  wardrobes,  are  never  per- 
mitted to  waste  their  sweetness  in  the  seclusion  of  a  bed- 
room, offering  their  beauties  to  the  gaze  only  of  the 
favoured  occupant  of  the  room.  No.  They  hold  a  prom- 
inent place  in  the  drawing-room,  and  their  rich  stores  are 
the  glory  and  crown  of  the  German  Hausfrau.  In  these 
is  her  stock  of  household  linen,  in  these  are  the  family  plate 
and  the  various  gifts  which  relatives  and  god-parents,  ac- 
cording to  promise,  give  yearly  to  her  children,  the  slowly 
accumulating  piles  which  are  in  turn  to  form  the  dowry  of 
her  daughters.  In  the  wardrobes  lie  folded  the  sheets 
which  she  hemmed  when  she  was  a  little  girl,  and  in  one 
corner  of  which,  between  the  day  of  her  betrothal  and  the 
day  of  her  marriage,  she,  with  her  mother  and  sisters,  em- 
broidered the  large  monograms  of  her  own  and  her  hus- 
band's name,  or,  if  the  family  of  her  future  spouse  were 
noble,  the  monogram  surmounted  by  a  coronet.  The 
household  linen  and  plate  of  a  daughter  are  considered  of 
such  importance  that  preparations  for  their  provision  begin 
with  her  christening.  One  aunt  promises  to  give  every 
year  one  spoon  till  a  dozen  and  a-half  are  completed ;  an- 
other promises  forks,  another  prefers  to  give  her  present  at 
once  and  sends  a  silver  coffee-pot  or  milk-jug.  Not  that 


VILLAGE  LIFE  IN  GERMANY      231 

these  are  ever  permitted  to  come  into  ordinary  use. 
Steel  forks  and  nickel  spoons  are  quite  good  enough  for 
daily  ware,  and  the  German  middle-class  housewife  would 
regard  the  use  of  silver  at  every  meal  much  as  the  English 
lady  would  regard  the  wearing  of  a  handsome  silk  train  to 
go  marketing.  The  great  point  is  to  possess  these  things, 
to  let  it  be  well  known  that  the  Frau  Pastorin  has  good 
store  of  linen  and  damask  and  is  rich  in  silver,  to  show 
them  to  intimate  friends  and  tell  their  history  to  admiring 
maidens,  emulous  of  similar  treasure,  but  the  occasions  on 
which  they  are  used  may  number  half  a  dozen  in  a  life-time. 

On  the  various  side-tables  of  the  Wohnzimmer  are  ar- 
ranged all  the  ornaments  of  the  family.  These  are  prob- 
ably not  many,  but  such  as  they  are  they  muster  in  full 
strength,  for  no  ornament  is  wasted  on  the  bedrooms. 

A  German  household  keeps  very  early  hours.  Breakfast 
is  always  served  at  6:30.  It  is  well  described  by  its 
name,  Frubstuck^  or  early  bit.  It  consists  as  a  rule  of 
coffee  and  a  Stmel,  or  white  roll.  Ah  !  The  English 
traveller  need  live  in  the  remoter  parts  of  Germany  and 
learn  the  secrets  of  its  country  life  rightly  to  appreciate  the 
blessing  of  white  bread.  It  is  only  at  the  early  breakfast 
and  at  the  afternoon  coffee,  or  Kaffeestunde,  that  the  Haus- 
frau  permits  such  a  luxury ;  at  dinner  and  supper,  and  at 
Zwiscbtntsstn,  the  light  lunch  served  to  him  at  about  10 
A.  M.,  he  must  eat  Sckwarzbrod,  or  black  bread.  This  is 
not,  as  its  name  would  imply,  black,  but  of  a  brownish 
grey.  It  is  usually  very  moist,  and  will  keep  in  a  fair  de- 
gree of  freshness  for  a  fortnight.  At  first  it  is  most  un- 
palatable to  English  taste,  and  it  is  possible  after  a  few 
weeks  to  eat  it  at  any  rate  without  disgust. 

It  is  well  for  the  English  inmate  of  a  German  house- 


232  GERMANY 

hold  if  there  has  not  recently  been  a  wedding  among  the 
friends  and  acquaintances  of  the  hostess.  If  there  has, 
the  grateful  sight  the  Semel,  or  white  bread,  is  withheld, 
and  its  place  is  taken  at  breakfast  by  large  pieces  of 
Brautkuchen. 

It  is  remarkable  that  the  Germans,  who  are  justly 
famous  for  their  cakes,  should  manufacture  such  an  ex- 
ceedingly plain  and  unattractive  article  for  their  bride-cake. 
Being  at  first  quite  unconscious  of  the  important  nature  of 
the  strange  confection  served  to  us  each  morning  at  Friih- 
stuck,  I  thus  wrote  to  a  friend  in  England :  "  For  break- 
fast we  have  a  cup  of  coffee  and  a  large  square  piece  of  a 
peculiar  kind  of  sweet  bread,  spread  with  sweetened  fat 
and  baked."  This,  indeed,  almost  describes  the  Braut- 
kuchen. It  is  a  very  plain  cake,  baked  in  flat  tins  meas- 
uring some  two  feet  by  one  foot  six  inches,  and  when 
baked  is  about  an  inch  in  thickness.  A  compound  of  lard, 
butter,  and  sugar  takes  the  place  of  our  elaborate  icing. 
These  cakes  are  baked  by  scores  before  a  wedding,  it  being 
etiquette  to  give  a  whole  one  to  each  family  with  whom  the 
bride  or  her  mother  are  on  terms  approaching  to  intimacy. 
One  of  these  cakes  being  presented  to  a  family,  it  forms 
for  several  mornings  the  standing  dish  at  breakfast,  and  the 
dainty  white  rolls  and  delicious  butter  are  conspicuous — 
ah  !  most  conspicuous — by  their  absence. 

At  10  A.  M.,  lest  nature  should  sink  before  the  first  sub- 
stantial meal  makes  its  appearance  at  midday,  the  strength 
is  reinforced  by  a  Schnittchen  or  slice,  composing  the  little 
Zwisckenessen.  This  is  a  slice  cut  from  the  large  loaf  of 
black  bread,  or  a  sandwich  composed  of  black  bread  and 
Leberwurst,  or  liver-sausage,  one  of  the  standing  dishes  of 
German  country  life,  made  from  the  liver  of  the  hog, 


VILLAGE  LIFE  IN  GERMANY      233 

minced  fine  and  mixed  with  fat  chopped  into  half-inch 
cubicles,  which  give  it  a  chequered  appearance.  A  cup  of 
cocoa  accompanies  the  Schnittchen.  Each  member  of  the 
family  enjoys  these  refreshments  while  engaged  at  his  or 
her  proper  duties  j  the  household  does  not  assemble  for  an 
impromptu  meal.  This  is  an  inestimable  fact  in  the  com- 
fort of  the  wily  foreigner,  and  I  must  confess  to  having 
made  clandestine  use  of  an  opportunity  which  solitude 
offered  on  the  day  after  my  arrival  at  the  Pfarrhaus.  It  so 
happened  that  I  was  sitting  in  the  garden  when  this  small 
lunch  was  brought  to  me  on  a  tray  by  a  diminutive  maid. 
It  was  an  old  rambling  garden,  and  its  winding  paths  were 
in  many  cases  shielded  completely  from  the  view  of  the 
house.  I  took  my  cocoa  from  the  tray,  laid  the  Schnittchen 
in  the  saucer,  thanked  the  little  maiden,  and  began  to  walk 
slowly  down  a  neighbouring  path,  presumably  that  I  might 
enjoy  the  air  and  sunshine  at  the  same  time  as  the  refresh- 
ments. I  was  soon  screened  from  sight  by  the  bushes,  and 
began  suspiciously  to  examine  what  might  be  the  nature  of 
that  intermediate  layer  between  the  thin  damp  slices  of 
black  bread.  When  I  saw  whereof  it  was  composed,  I  put 
down  my  cup  on  the  stump  of  a  tree,  and  with  a  stick  I 
raked  a  little  hole  in  the  mould  of  the  garden.  Then,  like 
Moses  of  old,  I  looked  this  way  and  that  way,  and  saw  that 
there  was  no  man  ;  so  I  drew  out  my  penknife,  and  expe- 
ditiously  consigned  those  lumps  of  solid  fat  to  the  small 
grave  prepared  for  their  reception. 

It  is  only  at  first,  however,  that  one  can  afford  to  be  so 
dainty.  By  degrees  one  learns  that  food  of  some  kind  one 
must  have,  and  that  food  in  abundance  is  daily  forthcom- 
ing, only  one  must  learn  to  eat  it  without  too  much  niceness. 
It  is  not  that  the  quality  is  bad  or  the  cooking  other  than 


234  GERMANY 

excellent,  that  makes  German  dishes  often  so  revolting  to 
an  English  palate — it  is  rather  that  the  German's  taste  in 
food  differs  radically  from  the  Englishman's,  and  that  the 
combinations  which  the  one  favours  are  such  as  the  other 
abhors.  Before  I  had  been  six  months  in  my  German 
home  I  had  learnt  to  eat  with  perfect  equanimity  sour  milk 
and  bread  crumbs,  raw  herrings  in  oil,  uncooked  ham,  and 
even  sauerkraut,  but  never  during  the  time  of  my  stay  did 
I  arrive  at  eating  stewed  pears  with  mutton  or  stewed 
plums  with  beef,  or  accepting  raisin  sauce  as  a  suitable  ac- 
companiment to  veal. 

I  have  said  that  a  German  household  assembles  early. 
Let  it  not,  however,  be  supposed  that  this  would  imply  that 
its  members  have  been  astir  an  hour  or  so  before  their  ap- 
pearance, and  that  each  has  performed  a  careful  toilet  be- 
fore breakfast.  One  of  the  most  established  customs  of 
German  home  life  is  that  the  ladies  never  complete  their 
toilet  until  all  the  domestic  duties  of  the  morning  have  been 
performed.  The  lady  of  the  house  appears  in  her  Morgen- 
kleid — /.  *.,  in  a  loose  wrapper  or  a  skirt  and  jacket,  drawn 
in  at  the  waist  by  the  strings  of  a  capacious  apron.  Her 
hair  has  been  smoothed  in  front,  and  is  enveloped  as  to  the 
back  in  a  large  frilled  cap,  having  ends  or  strings  which,  if 
she  is  young,  are  allowed  to  float  free  ;  and  if  she  is  old, 
are  tied  under  the  chin. 

The  Morgengebet,  or  family  prayer,  was  never  omitted 
in  our  Pfarrhaus.  Immediately  after  breakfast,  often  be- 
fore seven  o'clock,  the  household  assembled  in  the  Wobn- 
zimmer,  where  the  servants  had  arranged  chairs  in  a  semi- 
circle. At  one  end  sat  the  Herr  Consistorialrath,  for  our 
pastor  was  a  member  of  the  Consistory,  and  beside  him  the 
Frau  Rathin  his  wife,  then  the  other  members  of  the 


VILLAGE  LIFE  IN  GERMANY      235 

family,  till  at  the  other  end  came  the  two  maid-servants. 
The  little  service  consists  usually  of  a  hymn  sung  without 
accompaniment,  during  which  all  sit ;  next  follows  the 
reading  of  psalm  or  chapter  from  the  beautiful  version  of 
the  Scriptures  by  Luther,  the  Authorized  Version  of  Ger- 
many, then  follows  the  Lord's  Prayer,  which  closes  this 
simple  morning  worship. 

After  family  prayer  the  mistress  betakes  herself  to  the 
kitchen,  and  there  remains  for  several  hours,  accompanied 
by  one  or  more  of  her  daughters  if  old  enough  to  be  re- 
leased from  the  schoolroom.  Her  duties  there  are  by  no 
means  ornamental.  She  does  not  merely  superintend,  she 
actually  cooks,  nor  does  she  leave  the  kitchen  until  little 
more  remains  to  be  done  in  the  preparation  of  dinner.  A 
German  Jady  would  never  be  persuaded  that  the  jam-mak- 
ing could  go  on  without  her,  that  the  pickling  could  be  en- 
trusted to  a  domestic,  or  that  the  whole  batch  of  bread 
would  not  be  spoiled  if  she  did  not  look  personally  to  every 
detail  of  its  making. 

If,  as  is  usual  in  the  country,  the  laundrywork  is  done  at 
home,  the  mistress  is  to  be  found  keeping  her  workwomen 
up  to  the  mark,  and  she  with  her  daughters  frequently  takes 
a  share  of  the  ironing.  If  visitors  are  expected,  all  the 
ladies  of  the  family  are  busy  for  days  beforehand  in  culinary 
preparations,  and  the  Germans  excel  both  in  the  garnishing 
and  design  of  their  home-made  dishes  for  state  occasions. 

This  system  results  in  one  great  good  and  in  two  distinct 
evils.  The  good  is  apparent.  The  mistress  of  a  German 
household  thoroughly  understands  the  whole  work  of  her 
house ;  she  makes  its  smallest  detail  her  personal  care,  and 
comfort,  as  in  Germany  understood,  is  ensured.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  wife,  from  her  constant  absorption  in 


236  GERMANY 

household  details,  becomes  little  more  than  the  head  serv- 
ant ;  even  her  husband,  taught  by  immemorial  custom,  re- 
gards her  more  as  his  housekeeper  than  as  his  companion  ; 
and,  with  the  one  notable  exception  of  music,  she  has,  out- 
side her  housekeeping,  little  interest  or  occupation.  As 
she  must  turn  to  something  for  relaxation,  she  turns  to 
gossip.  At  a  Kaffeegesettschaft)  or  coffee  party,  where 
German  ladies  (and  ladies  only,  for  men  are  vigorously 
excluded)  meet  and  enjoy  themselves  after  their  manner, 
gossip  flows  free  and  scandal  stalks  unchecked.  The  knit- 
ting-needles gleam  and  click  pleasantly,  the  stockings  grow 
with  astounding  rapidity,  the  servants  carry  around  again 
and  again  large  trays  bearing  cups  of  fragrant  coffee  and 
plates  piled  high  with  dainty  confectionery,  but  the  conver- 
sation is  of  the  most  frivolous. 

The  second  evil  is  that  the  servants,  being  never  relied 
upon  for  anything,  grow  increasingly  incompetent.  What 
we  should  understand  by  "  a  superior  servant  "  is  almost 
unknown,  and  the  maids  are  for  the  most  part  ill-suited  to 
play  any  but  their  own  very  subordinate  part  in  the  com- 
fort and  economy  of  the  house. 

Hospitality  is  shown  with  ungrudging  liberality  all  over 
Germany.  At  our  distant  Pfarrhaus,  however  unexpected 
or  inopportune  their  arrival,  it  was  always  understood  that 
visitors  should  spend  the  day.  In  the  towns  no  less  than 
in  the  villages  every  caller  must  be  offered  some  sort  of 
refreshment.  Fruit  or  cake  is  generally  offered  to  ladies, 
cigars  and  lager  beer  to  men.  But  it  is  on  Sunday  that 
visitors  are  most  numerous,  and  one  of  the  most  trying 
experiences  that  the  English  resident  in  Germany  has  to 
face  is  the  complete  secularization  week  by  week  of  God's 
holy  day.  The  morning  service  is  over  early,  and  within 


VILLAGE  LIFE  IN  GERMANY      237 

an  hour  there  arrive  some  three  or  four  of  our  host's  friends, 
accompanied  by  their  wives.  The  ladies  bring  large  parcels 
of  embroidery  or  knitting,  and  work  and  chat  go  merrily 
forward  till  the  midday  meal  is  served;  then  more  chat, 
and  very  probably  card-playing  until  evening,  when,  after 
supper,  the  guests  take  their  leave. 

A  great  event  at  our  Pfarrhaus  was  the  periodical  pluck- 
ing of  the  geese,  a  practice  which  would  not  be  permitted 
in  England,  but  which  is  regarded  as  a  natural  part  of  the 
good  management  of  a  poultry-yard  in  Germany.  On  a 
given  day  near  to  the  moulting  season  all  other  work  was 
put  aside,  and  the  two  maid-servants  and  two  women  hired 
for  the  purpose  sat  from  morning  till  late  afternoon  care- 
fully plucking  the  feathers  and  down  which  had  become 
loosened  preparatory  to  shedding.  I  expressed  to  the  eldest 
daughter  of  the  house  my  astonishment  at  such  a  custom, 
and  she  assured  me  that  though  the  geese  "  did  not  like  it," 
she  thought  that  the  pain  inflicted  was  slight,  while  the 
Frau  Rathin  pointed  out  to  me  that  but  for  this  timely 
intervention  the  precious  down  would  soon  bestrew  the 
poultry-yard,  and  be  dirtied  and  injured,  or  altogether  lost. 
As  each  great  white  or  grey  goose,  loudly  remonstrating 
against  the  indignities  heaped  upon  it,  was  carried  back  to 
the  yard,  I  am  bound  to  confess  that,  although  a  fair  pro- 
portion of  its  feathers  remained,  the  appearance  it  presented 
was  anything  but  happy. 

At  the  close  of  the  plucking  day  feathers  and  down  are 
tied  up  separately  in  large  bags,  and  sent  to  a  woman  who 
makes  feather-dressing  her  business.  She  bakes  them,  takes 
out  quills,  and  returns  them  soft  and  ready  for  use.  They 
are  then  sold,  or  made  into  huge  pillows,  or  into  the  Feder- 
betten  so  generally  used  in  Germany.  The  Federbett  is  not, 


238  GERMANY 

as  its  name  would  imply,  a  feather  bed,  but  a  kind  of  quilt. 
It  measures  some  six  feet  by  four,  and  is  simply  a  coarse 
linen  bag  half  filled  with  the  finest  down  and  slipped  into  a 
cotton  or  linen  case.  It  forms  the  whole  covering  of  the 
bed  in  winter,  and  no  one  who  has  not  slept  in  this  nest  of 
feathers  can  imagine  its  comfort. 

As  summer  waned  and  winter  drew  on,  great  prepara- 
tions were  visible  at  our  Pfarrhaus. 

English  people  have  little  idea  of  the  severity  of  a  Ger- 
man winter}  ordinary  clothing,  sufficient  to  carry  the  wearer 
in  comfort  through  the  coldest  weather  in  England,  is  of 
no  use  to  face  it;  coats  and  jackets  of  thick  cloth  avail 
little;  fur  is  the  only  adequate  protection.  Every  cab- 
driver  has  his  fur-lined  coat  and  round  fur  cap.  With  us 
the  careful  Hausfrau  is  preparing  thick  stockings,  gaiters, 
and  under-shoes  for  every  member  of  her  household,  and 
by-and-by  experience  will  prove  her  wisdom. 

The  autumn  is  bright  and  often  glorious,  and  lasts  well 
into  October;  but  then  the  winter  begins,  and  by  the 
middle  of  November  our  village  was  mantled  in  snow. 
This  early  snow  was  soon  followed  by  thaw ;  but  by  the 
beginning  of  December  the  cold  was  upon  us  indeed,  and 
a  frost  set  in  which  lasted  with  slight  intermission  until 
March.  In  the  towns  life  goes  on  as  ever,  or  more  gaily 
than  before.  Sleighs  take  the  place  of  wheeled  vehicles, 
which  for  the  time  being  totally  disappear.  The  horses  are 
for  the  most  part  gaily  caparisoned ;  a  bright  saddle-cloth 
under  the  harness  matches  the  frontal  and  rosettes,  and  on 
the  crest  is  a  tiny  bell,  while  other  bells  in  pairs  adorn  the 
pad.  Skating  and  sleigh  parties  become  very  general  among 
the  well-to-do,  and  men  thrown  out  of  their  usual  employ- 
ment by  the  frost  are  able  to  earn  a  good  deal  as  drivers. 


VILLAGE  LIFE  IN  GERMANY      239 

But  in  our  village  we  are  practically  in  a  state  of  siege ; 
we  are  held  by  a  conqueror  whom  we  cannot  hope  to 
subdue ;  and  our  deliverer,  spring,  is  yet  far  off.  The 
ways  and  customs  of  the  rest  of  the  year  all  at  once  drop 
away.  First,  the  Bottnfrau,  or  village  carrier — that  benefi- 
cent link  between  us  and  civilization — ceases  her  daily  visits 
to  the  town  four  miles  distant;  and,  simultaneously,  the 
woman  who  brings  us  our  white  bread  from  the  town 
bakery  is  unable  to  reach  us,  and  thus  the  white  rolls,  chief 
alleviation  of  the  rigours  of  a  German  diet,  disappear  from 
our  table,  and  their  place  at  breakfast  and  Kaffee  is  taken 
by  slices  of  black  bread  and  butter.  The  village  butcher 
now  strides  up  and  down  outside  an  empty  shop,  for  this  is 
no  time  for  keeping  meat.  But  at  our  Pfarrhaus  forewarned 
has  proved  itself  to  be  forearmed.  The  Frau  Rath  in  knew 
that  this  weather  was  before  us,  and  when  autumn  winds 
were  only  beginning  to  rob  the  trees  of  their  leaves,  she 
was  laying  her  plans  accordingly.  Now  that  the  expected 
conqueror  has  come,  and  we  are  straitly  shut  up,  she  has 
within  her  own  walls  the  means  of  defying  him  for  a  long 
time.  Come  with  me  to  that  part  of  the  house  which  we 
have  not  visited — the  store-room.  This  is  by  no  means 
the  least  comfortable  apartment  in  the  house.  The  two 
maid-servants  slept,  until  winter  drove  them  down,  imme- 
diately under  the  tiles,  in  an  unceiled  garret  in  the  roof, 
but  not  thus  can  the  stores  be  housed.  The  maids  can 
come  down  and  make  up  impromptu  beds  in  the  kitchen, 
or  in  one  of  the  lower  rooms,  when  winter  holds  sway  and 
their  own  garret  is  untenable,  but  on  the  condition  of  the 
provisions  depends  the  welfare  of  the  whole  house,  and  a 
good  room  is  therefore  set  apart  for  their  storage. 

In  the  middle  of  the  store-room  is  a  small  oil  stove,  for 


240  GERMANY 

the  frost  must  be  kept  out.  On  a  long  deal  table  against 
the  wall  stand  rows  of  jars,  tins,  and  bottles ;  huge  heaps 
of  potatoes  are  on  the  floor,  and  near  the  ceiling,  hanging 
from  hooks  on  either  side  of  a  beam,  are  lines  of  large 
German  sausages.  These  last  are  among  the  most  im- 
portant stores  of  a  country  house.  They  are  made  of 
cured  pork  and  will  keep  as  long  as  hams  ;  each  sausage  is 
as  good  as  a  small  joint,  being  about  fourteen  inches  long 
and  four  inches  in  diameter.  From  this  stock  of  provisions 
the  table  can  be  furnished  for  a  considerable  time.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  during  the  six  most  rigorous  weeks  of  the 
winter  we  lived  at  the  Pfarrhaus  on  potatoes,  smoked  pork 
and  sausages,  and  black  bread.  For  two  or  three  days  after 
the  first  deep  snow  we  are  utterly  cut  off,  even  our  letters 
do  not  reach  us ;  but  at  last  a  path  is  dug,  and  our  postman 
appears  again — his  advent  hailed  by  at  least  one  member  of 
the  household  with  gratitude  and  benediction.  He  is  an 
old  soldier,  tough  as  nails  despite  his  sixty  winters,  with 
blue  kindly  eyes  gleaming  under  shaggy  white  eyebrows. 
He  generally  goes  a  daily  tramp  of  twelve  English  miles, 
being  walking  postman  to  villages  beyond  ours.  To  us  he 
is  postman  and  post-office  in  one ;  he  can  sell  us  stamps  ; 
he  not  only  brings  the  letters  we  receive,  but  takes  those 
that  we  write,  and  if  they  are  not  ready  by  the  time  he  ar- 
rives in  the  morning,  well,  they  must  wait  till  to-morrow. 
He  is,  moreover,  the  porter  of  any  parcels  that  may  be  sent 
to  us  by  rail,  and  when  he  brings  a  heavier  one  than  usual 
we  must  give  him  two  or  three  Silbergroscken  for  his 
trouble. 

Most  of  the  peasants  in  our  village  are  well  off;  but  to 
the  very  poor  winter  comes  armed  with  appalling  terrors. 
Near  the  church  is  the  poor-house,  very  different  from  an 


VILLAGE  LIFE  IN  GERMANY      241 

English  Union,  but  in  some  respects  its  equivalent.  It 
contains  six  empty  rooms,  and  any  family  really  in  destitu- 
tion may,  on  obtaining  an  order  signed  by  the  chief  con- 
stable, take  up  their  abode  there  and  carry  thither  the  few 
articles  of  furniture  they  may  possess.  For  subsistence  the 
inmates  of  this  dwelling  depend  entirely  on  charity.  They 
solicit  alms  daily  from  house  to  house,  and  are  never  re- 
fused. The  sums  given  are  extremely  small,  generally  two 
pfennigs — less  than  a  farthing — at  most  five  pfennigs^  or 
about  a  halfpenny  ;  but  this  is  all  that  is  expected,  and  the 
few  pence  thus  collected  go  much  farther  in  Germany  than 
in  England,  for  black  bread  is  very  cheap  indeed. 

Long  evenings  in  the  big  sitting-room  were  among  the 
winter  pleasures  of  our  Pfarrbaus  life,  and  many  books 
were  read  aloud  while  busy  fingers  plied  the  needle,  or  the 
stockings,  which  the  German  in  season  and  out  of  season 
is  forever  knitting,  grew  swiftly  on  the  needles.  The 
books  chosen  were  of  a  very  intellectual  character,  for,  de- 
spite the  almost  primitive  simplicity  of  their  mode  of  life, 
our  pastor  and  his  family  were  both  cultured  and  refined. 
Female  education  in  Germany  comprises  many  branches, 
and  each  receives  most  thorough  attention.  A  German 
girl  is  generally  well  read  in  her  own  literature,  writes  a 
good  hand,  and  is  an  adept  at  expressing  herself  in  the  long 
involved  sentences  and  heavy  periods  which  are  the  ad- 
mired of  all  (German)  admirers  in  the  matter  of  style.  She  is 
thoroughly  versed  in  history  up  to  the  point  required  by  the 
text-books  generally  in  use,  has  been  taught  to  recite  with 
much  care  and  feeling,  and  is  probably  an  excellent  French 
scholar.  In  music,  and  in  all  that  can  make  proficiency  in 
housekeeping  and  sewing,  she  has  been  carefully  trained 
from  a  child.  Many  of  the  German  maidens  whom  I 


242  GERMANY 

knew  would  have  come  up  to  this  standard.  Such  as 
went  beyond  it,  and  added  English,  drawing,  and  painting 
to  their  attainments,  were  considered  accomplished.  At 
last  the  frost  began  to  give,  and  when  we  were  well  into 
March  and  the  deep  snows  had  melted  and  rolled  away  in 
streams  of  slush,  I  went  down  to  see  the  great  platforms  of 
slowly  melting  ice  that  covered  the  Oder.  This  river  is 
frozen  in  winter  for  many  miles,  and  as  the  cold  lessens 
the  ice  melts  at  the  edges,  and  great  sheets  become  de- 
tached and  drift  slowly  towards  the  sea. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  a  sad  accident  occurred  which 
resulted  in  the  death  of  two  of  our  villagers.  A  man  was 
at  work  upon  a  boat  which  had  been  injured  by  the  frost. 
He  was  standing  on  a  plank,  laid  as  a  rough  bridge,  across 
the  few  intermediate  feet  of  water  between  the  bank  and 
the  ice,  which  floated,  almost  stationary,  in  the  midst  of  the 
stream.  Suddenly  the  ice  on  which  his  plank  rested  gave 
way  and  he  was  precipitated  into  the  water.  His  son 
bravely  sprang  after  him  j  but  both  were  soon  under  the 
ice,  and  when  help  arrived  it  was  too  late.  The  funeral 
was  a  touching  sight.  The  two  coffins,  each  made,  as  is 
usual  in  Germany,  in  the  form  of  an  arc,  were  wreathed 
with  evergreen  boughs  in  emblem  of  immortality.  The 
widow  and  six  orphans  followed  in  worn  garments,  with 
pieces  of  crape  tied  on  to  their  wrists  and  pinned  upon 
their  breasts,  and  almost  the  whole  village  attended.  At  the 
close  of  the  service,  the  mourners  and  friends  drew  near 
and  threw  each  a  handful  of  earth  into  the  grave. 

"  Eine  Handvoll  Erde 
Getf  ich  Dir  zu  Ruh" 

On  the  following  Sunday,  when  the  minister  mounted 


VILLAGE  LIFE  IN  GERMANY      243 

the  pulpit  and  began  his  sermon  by  a  reference  to  the  cloud 
which  had  just  shadowed  the  village,  the  congregation 
wept  aloud.  The  Germans,  in  most  things  so  unlike  the 
French,  resemble  them  in  their  public  demonstrations  of 
emotion.  The  "  loud  crying  and  tears  "  of  the  listeners 
obliged  the  minister  to  pause  in  his  discourse.  When, 
a  month  or  so  later,  the  events  of  the  winter  were  reviewed 
from  the  pulpit  and  special  reference  was  made  to  this 
calamity,  the  same  outburst  of  grief  arose  from  all  parts  of 
the  little  church. 

Spring,  when  at  last  she  came  to  us,  came  with  no  back- 
ward pace.  The  ice  had  long  since  vanished  from  the 
river.  Earth  was  smiling  once  more,  and  the  June  roses 
were  blooming  again  in  the  garden,  when  a  letter  called  me 
to  Dresden,  and  I  bade  a  reluctant  farewell  to  my  kind 
friends  at  the  Pfarrhaus  and  to  German  village  life. 


A  GERMAN  HOLIDAY 

G.  W.  STEEPENS 

THE  deck  of  the  fast  steamer  Cobra,  plying  between 
Hamburg  and  the  popular  seaside  resorts  of 
Heligoland,  Sylt,  Norderney,  and  Borkum,  beg- 
gared disgust.  She  had  started  with  her  cargo  of  holiday- 
makers  at  eight  in  the  morning.  I  went  on  board  from 
Cuxhaven  at  half-past  twelve.  But  already  the  deck  was  a 
rolling  pavement  of  beer-bottles.  It  was  raining,  and  the 
slippery  planking  ran  beer  and  water ;  in  the  beer  and  water 
stewed  the  stale  ends  of  cigars.  Waiters  rushed  up  and 
down  with  more  beer ;  the  Germans  emptied  the  bottles  and 
then  added  them  to  the  deck.  The  ship  recalled  the  mor- 
row of  a  hoggish  debauch ;  really  it  was  only  the  natural 
and  normal  beginning  of  the  German's  holiday.  Observe 
the  fat  travelling  bags — all  of  a  handy  size  for  the  rack : 
you  pay  extra  for  the  van — with  one  side  embroidered  over 
in  wool-work,  and  the  legend  "  Pleasant  journey  "  pat- 
terned in  beads  in  the  middle. 

You  would  have  expected  the  company  to  be  a  herd  of 
coarse  rowdies,  by  the  side  of  whom  a  Sunday  shipload  of 
Margate  trippers  would  be  refined  and  intellectual.  But 
not  at  all.  These  were  all  persons  of  the  highest  respecta- 
bility— the  staid  and  prosperous  middle  classes,  who  were 
making  a  trip  which  none  but  the  relatively  affluent  could 
afford.  The  men  might  indeed  be  bloated  with  much  good 
living,  little  exercise,  and  endless  beer ;  yet  they  held  them- 


A  GERMAN  HOLIDAY  245 

selves  upright  like  old  soldiers,  now  self-respecting  men  of 
business ;  their  large  foreheads  suggested  men  of  education 
and  intellectual  power.  The  women — and  herein  lay  the 
difference  from  an  English  crowd  of  the  upper  middle 
class — were  infinitely  less  refined  than  the  men.  Fat,  sit- 
ting with  their  knees  wide  apart,  with  large  coarse  features, 
dowdy,  baggy  travelling  dresses,  handbags  slung  round  their 
middles  in  front,  mackintoshes  hitched  to  their  waists  be- 
hind, they  radiated  an  uncomfortable  suggestion  of  a  Kaffir 
kraal.  You  saw  what  goal  the  pink  and  blue  and  flaxen 
bride  was  travelling  to. 

From  the  whole  boat  swelled  a  roar  of  loud-voiced  con- 
versation, and  the  subject  was  always  the  same.  Time- 
table and  guide-book — nothing  else.  The  German  has  a 
passionate  love  of  details,  especially  of  details  with  a  flavour 
of  official  authority  about  them.  They  talked  on  by  the 
hour  about  the  best  connection  from  Ober-Puppenheim  to 
Hamburg,  where  you  stopped  for  four  minutes — or  was  it 
six  ?  loud  dispute — to  get  a  glass  of  beer ;  what  was  the  ex- 
act tariff  for  the  porter  who  carried  your  baggage  on  board 
the  boat;  how  much  they  charged  for  breakfast  at  the  third- 
best  hotel  in  Norderney  ;  the  exact  date  and  dimensions  of 
the  new  post-office  at  Heligoland.  I  should  have  been 
appalled  at  their  learning,  but  that  I  had  the  same  time- 
table and  guide-book  myself.  Yet  they  babbled  on,  reeling 
off  strings  of  facts  which  each  man  knew  to  come  word  for 
word  out  of  the  guide-book,  which  yet  each  received — ex- 
cept when  inexactly  remembered — as  if  he  were  absorbing 
a  new  theory  of  life  from  a  new  Socrates.  It  all  showed 
wonderful  memory,  wonderful  grasp  of  particulars,  wonder- 
ful gravity — and  wonderful  childishness.  Such  might  be 
the  debates  of  a  Parliament  of  babies. 


246  GERMANY 

When  the  boat  began  to  dance  and  the  waves  to  splash 
on  board,  the  Parliament  became  hilarious.  Between  each 
drenching  their  faces  relapsed  into  statesmanlike  preoccu- 
pation ;  as  the  spray  flew  up  they  screamed  like  children. 
After  a  little  of  that  many  retired  to  the  side  of  the  ship, 
and  were  gravely  sea-sick.  And  after  a  little  of  that  came 
the  time  to  land.  On  the  landing  ensued  a  ceremony 
which  seems  traditional  in  German  watering-places — is  it 
not  mentioned  in  the  sacred  guide-books  ?  The  visitors 
were  massed  on  the  beach,  leaving  a  clear  pathway  for  the 
new-comers  to  pass  between  them.  As  each  bedraggled, 
pale  passenger  set  foot  on  land  the  crowd  proceeded  to  jeer 
at  him.  Especially  the  women  came  in  for  yells  of  de- 
rision :  "  Hallo,  mother-in-law,  chemist's  shop  to  the 
left,"  cried  the  wits.  Loudest  of  all  was  the  reception  of 
a  couple  with  the  unmistakable  mark  of  honeymooners. 
You  would  never  have  believed  that  behaviour  so  cubbish 
and  unmannerly  could  exist  in  civilization — except  that  it 
should  be  taken  in  such  complete  good  part.  Men  stopped 
in  the  middle  of  the  gangway  to  answer  chaff  with  chaff. 
The  bridegroom  took  off  his  hat  and  bowed  as  if  he  was  a 
conquering  hero ;  the  very  bride  only  laughed.  It  was 
again  the  unconstrained  badinage  of  the  nursery. 

And  now  we  are  at  the  German  seaside  :  what  do  we  do 
there  ?  How  do  we  amuse  ourselves  ?  First  and  most 
important,  with  beer  and  the  band.  Germany  cannot  do 
without  either,  and  the  comfort  is  that  you  can  take  both 
together.  After  beer  and  the  band — the  baths.  The  Ger- 
man never  talks  of  the  seaside ;  he  calls  it  a  sea-bath.  He 
takes  his  sea-bath  with  the  solemnity  with  which  he  takes 
his  time-table  and  his  beer.  The  morning  is  the  time,  and 
the  style  of  bathing  is  the  common  female,  or  bob-and-duck, 


A  GERMAN  HOLIDAY  247 

style.  Not  that  the  German  cannot  swim :  there  is  a 
swimming  bath  in  every  little  town  that  has  a  river  to  put 
it  in,  and  the  young  men  are  as  useful  in  the  water  as  they 
are  in  the  gymnasium.  But  at  the  sea-bath  the  bob-and- 
duck  is  the  way  to  bathe,  and  the  German  does  things  in 
the  way.  The  joy  of  the  Englishman,  still  more  of  the 
American,  is  to  do  something  out  of  the  way  ;  the  German 
finds  his  warmest  glow  in  finding  out  the  regulation  way, 
and  triumphantly  walking  in  it.  So  he  takes  his  bath-ticket 
and  his  machine,  attires  his  portly  form  in  an  ordinary 
bathing  costume,  goes  quivering,  jelly-like,  into  the  surf, 
bows  himself  and  carries  water  to  his  face,  and  then  awaits 
the  wave.  Three  waves  is  the  regulation  dose  for  the  first 
day  j  when  three  have  wetted  him  he  quivers  back  to  his 
machine :  he  has  taken  his  bath.  The  sexes  do  not  bathe 
together ;  as  you  walk — flanked  by  notice-boards  directing 
you  to  places  ten  yards  away,  or  forbidding  you  to  damage 
the  beach — you  come  to  a  notice-board  whose  genial  per- 
emptoriness  is  thoroughly  German.  "  For  the  honoured 
gentleman-public,"  it  runs:  "thus  far  and  no  farther." 
There  you  may  stand  and  see  fisherwomen,  attired  in  what 
appear  white  night-gowns,  push  the  machine  down  to  the 
sea.  Therefrom  emerges  the  German's  wife :  her  dress, 
figure,  and  method  of  bathing  is  a  disappointingly  exact 
copy  of  her  husband's. 

The  German  has  bathed ;  he  glows  with  satisfaction. 
He  describes  the  process  to  everybody  he  meets ;  he  never 
saw  his  friend  before,  and  his  friend  has  just  done  exactly 
the  same  thing ;  yet  each  repeats  his  exploits  with  frank 
self-gratulation.  Then  dinner — midday  eat,  they  most  ap- 
propriately call  it — say  soup ;  lobster  eaten  with  a  knife  ; 
roast  veal  in  a  curiously  square,  lumpy  joint  with  viscous 


248  GERMANY 

spiced  gravy  over  it ;  raw  herring  and  kidney  beans  cooked 
with  nutmeg ;  roast  fowl  with  salad  and  stewed  peaches ; 
pudding ;  cheese  ;  dessert ;  coffee  ;  the  whole  prefaced  by 
beer,  accompanied  by  Rhine-wine  and  seltzer,  with  an 
epilogue  of  beer  at  the  end.  That  is  a  fair  sample  of  the 
German  midday  eat ;  and  the  wonderful  thing  is  that  he 
takes  it,  if  he  can  afford  it,  every  day,  work-days  and  holi- 
days alike.  Of  course  he  is  comatose  after  it,  and  must 
sleep  for  a  couple  of  hours.  Business  takes  its  siesta  from 
twelve  to  three  in  Germany  as  completely  as  it  does  in 
Turkey.  But  you  must  remember  that  the  German  was  at 
work  at  eight,  and  will  not  knock  off  till  six  or  seven. 

Remember  that  he  has  had  his  coffee  and  roll  (early- 
piece),  and  his  sandwich  and  glass  of  beer  (second  early- 
piece)  before  he  comes  to  midday-eat.  After  that  comes 
coffee  and  a  roll,  evening-eat — say  steak  and  onions,  cold 
beef,  sausage  and  raw  ham,  stewed  fruit  and  oddments — 
and  then  a  little  sandwich  to  wind  up  with  before  going  to 
bed.  In  all  seven  meals,  of  which,  however,  only  one 
quite  disabling. 

For  the  interstices  between  meals,  beer  and  the  band. 
At  Norderney  and  Heligoland  there  are  theatres ;  at  simpler 
Borkum  you  sing  in  chorus  with  the  band.  The  more 
athletic  young  men  play  with  their  spades  and  pails.  But 
one  great  pastime  we  must  not  forget — sending  picture 
post-cards  to  one's  friends.  The  picture  post-card  is  one 
of  the  vital  elements  in  German  life ;  the  most  highly  cul- 
tivated do  not  disdain  to  play  with  them.  On  one  side 
they  are  wholly  taken  up  with  views,  with  the  simple 

inscription  :  "  Greeting  from "  wherever  it  may 

be.  On  the  other  side  you  have  only  to  write  the 
address.  As  the  object  of  the  German's  travels  is  not  so 


A  GERMAN  HOLIDAY  249 

much  enjoying  himself  in  a  place  as  enjoying  saying  he 
has  been  there — adding  it  to  his  repertory — the  picture 
post  card  is  just  the  sort  of  combined  index  and  guarantee 
of  good  faith  that  he  wants.  The  picture  may  be  a  view 
of  a  place  or  of  an  event.  They  sell  them  on  excursion 
steamers,  in  music-halls,  dancing  saloons,  everywhere — 
each  with  its  own  inscription  :  "  Greeting  from  La  Mar- 
guerite " ;  "  Greeting  from  the  Tivoli "  ;  "  Greeting  from 
the  largest  crane  in  the  world  at  Hamburg,"  greeting  from 
any  conceivable  place  a  German  could  ever  visit.  If 
you  prefer  humour,  you  can  get  pictures  of  a  row  of  people 
being  sea-sick  over  a  ship's  side.  At  the  manoeuvres 
soldiers  by  the  hundreds  bought  half-penny  cards  with 
little  pictures  of  soldiers  manoeuvring  on  them  to  send 
to  friends.  If  you  are  artistic  you  can  get  one  with  the 
Sistine  Madonna  ;  if  frivolous,  one  with  the  Sisters  Barrison. 
High-toned  or  low,  the  whole  nation  plays  with  the  picture 
post-card  as  one  German.  It  is  the  exact  summary  of  the 
German  holiday. 


ON  THE  GERMAN  ARMY 

G.    W.   STEEPENS 

"  "¥"T  is  a  noiseless  engine — like  doing  from  the  topmost 
general  to  the  bottommost  soldier."  That  is  the 

JL  description  of  the  German  army  given  to  me  by  a 
member  of  it.  And  the  description  is  no  overstatement. 
The  German  army  is  the  most  perfectly  adapted,  perfectly 
running  machine.  Never  can  there  have  been  a  more 
signal  triumph  of  organization  over  complexity.  The 
armies  of  other  nations  in  days  past  may  have  been  as  well 
organized,  but  the  problem  of  organization  was  infinitely 
less  complex.  The  armies  of  other  nations  to-day  may  be 
as  complex,  but  they  are  not  so  completely  organized.  To 
quote  my  friend  again,  in  the  French,  the  Austrian,  the 
Italian  services,  "  it  works,  but  it  works  not  with  oil." 
The  German  army  is  the  finest  thing  of  its  kind  in  the 
world  ;  it  is  the  finest  thing  in  Germany  of  any  kind.  It 
is  even  worth  the  price  that  Germany  pays  for  it. 

To  the  Germans  themselves  the  army  is  the  cause  and 
justification  of  the  whole  nation.  Comment  to  a  person 
on  the  want  of  personal  liberty  in  some  little  detail  of  daily 
life,  and  he  counters  at  once  with  an  appeal  to  the  army. 
11  Yes ;  it  is  no  doubt  annoying  to  an  Englishman  to  have  to 
wait  on  a  railway  platform  till  the  guard  tells  him  he  may 
get  in  ;  but  then  you  must  remember  that  we  have  powerful 
military  nations  on  both  frontiers."  To  the  English  mind 
the  logic  is  ridiculous  ;  to  the  German  it  is  irrefragable.  He 
accepts  the  deforming  of  his  country  as  a  necessary  cor- 


ON  THE  GERMAN  ARMY          251 

relative  to  the  efficiency  of  his  army.  He  may  approve  or 
he  may  disapprove.  "  I  belong  to  it,"  said  an  officer  to 
me,  "and  belonging  to  it  I  see  what  a  splendid  thing  it  is, 
and  I'm  very  proud  of  it ;  but  I  see  also  that  it's  the  ruin 
of  everything  else  in  Germany."  But  even  to  this  ex- 
ceptional officer  it  did  not  seem  to  occur  that  civil  life 
need  not  be  cut  to  the  military  pattern.  For  good  or  evil 
the  army  is  Germany. 

Germany  pays  dear  for  it,  and  the  year's  military  budget 
represents  only  the  smallest  fraction  of  the  burden.  Two 
to  three  years  out  of  the  life  of  every  working  man,  one 
year  out  of  the  life  of  everybody  else,  eight  weeks  a  year 
for  five  years  more,  the  whole  lives  of  thirty  thousand  of 
the  best  men  in  the  country — these  are  only  the  most  ob- 
vious of  the  other  items.  Germany  pays  cruelly — but  also 
gets  something  back.  To  the  English  eye  the  German 
private  appears  lumpish  and  stupid.  Heavy  in  form,  heavy 
in  face,  he  just  does  what  he  is  told  to  do,  like  a  rather 
clumsy  machine.  At  the  manoeuvres  you  may  see  whole 
companies,  when  they  are  not  ordered  to  march  or  fire, 
lying  down  with  their  faces  on  the  ground,  not  taking 
the  dimmest  interest  in  the  operations  which  are  the  test 
and  the  crown  of  their  whole  year's  work.  Yet  if  they 
are  dull,  you  may  safely  say  that  without  their  years  of 
service  they  would  be  duller  yet.  Take  your  peasant 
for  two  years  into  a  garrison  with  a  company  of  120 
others  ;  teach  him  drill  and  discipline,  show  him  at  least 
a  corner  of  the  world  ;  he  will  not  go  back  quite  the 
clod  he  came.  No  doubt  the  quickening  of  his  wits  has 
primary  regard  to  military  operations:  at  the  manoeuvres 
it  was  a  revelation  to  see  the  peasants  turn  out  of  their 
huts  and  drop  their  carting,  to  see  the  keenness  with  which 


252  GERMANY 

they  followed  the  troops,  recognizing  the  name,  the  nature, 
and  intention  of  each  evolution.  Seeing  this,  you  began 
to  understand  what  the  phrase  "  a  military  nation  "  means. 
But  it  is  safe  to  conclude  that  the  man  whose  intelligence 
is  sharpened  to  the  point  of  following  and  understanding 
military  manoeuvres  is  sharpened  in  his  appreciation  of 
other  sides  of  life  also.  In  the  towns,  where  the  mind 
does  not  need  the  stimulus  of  military  training,  the  good 
of  it  works  out  in  the  body.  The  years  of  service  are 
the  only  healthy  ones  in  the  German's  life :  they  stiffen 
him  out  of  a  flaccid  boy  into  a  straight-shouldered  man. 
In  after  life  he  may  degenerate  into  a  beer-barrel,  but  it 
takes  years  to  get  the  soldiery  set  out  of  his  limbs.  Re- 
turning from  Germany,  you  find  it  almost  painful  to 
walk  about  London :  what  business  have  these  slouching, 
stooping,  chestless  young  men  in  our  imperial  city? 

But  good  influence  or  bad  in  the  country,  that  is  not  the 
question.  The  country  exists  for  the  army,  not  the  army 
for  the  country.  In  the  army  German  thoroughness,  Ger- 
man industry,  German  common-sense,  German  devotion 
to  duty,  are  found  at  their  full.  From  the  chief  of  the 
great  General  Staff  to  the  driver  of  the  field-telegraph  waggon 
every  man  knows  what  he  has  to  do,  and  every  man  does 
it.  There  is  some  definite  person  charged  with  every  pos- 
sible service  that  war  might  require.  To  find  out  about 
foreign  armies ;  to  determine  what  force,  applied  in  what 
way,  is  necessary  to  defeat  them ;  to  raise  and  train  that 
force,  to  supply  it  with  arms,  ammunition,  food,  clothing, 
saddlery,  medical  attendance ;  to  move  it  from  one  place  to 
another,  to  lead  it  into  the  field — the  details  of  every  func- 
tion have  been  thought  out  beforehand,  and  have  been 
provided  for.  "  Suppose  war  should  suddenly  break  out,"  I 


ON  THE  GERMAN  ARMY          253 

said  to  an  officer  on  leave,  "  I  suppose  you  make  for  your 
regiment  at  once."  "  No,"  he  replied  :  "  if  war  breaks  out 
I  go  at  once  to  Niederschlossburg :  there  are  certain  horses 
there  which  I  have  to  requisition."  "  Do  you  know  exactly 
where  to  lay  your  hands  on  them  ?  "  He  smiled.  "  Should 
I  be  of  any  use  if  I  didn't  ?  "  he  asked.  No  waiting  in  war 
time  to  ask  what  is  wanted  and  then  find  it :  he  just  goes 
and  gets  the  horses. 

Briefly,  the  difference  between  the  German  and,  for  in- 
stance, the  English  armies,  is  a  single  one.  The  German 
army  is  organized  with  a  view  to  war,  with  the  cold,  hard, 
practical,  business-like  purpose  of  winning  victories.  The 
question  what  show  it  makes  in  the  eyes  of  Germany  or 
the  world  comes  a  long  way  second ;  absolute  efficiency  is 
its  one  and  only  test.  In  Germany  you  can  stake  your  life 
that  every  pfennig  spent  on  the  army  is  honestly  spent, 
and  that  every  man  or  horse  or  cartridge  that  is  on  paper  is 
there  in  fact ;  and  that,  what  with  official  corruption  and 
lassitude,  and  a  desire  to  put  off  public  opinion,  is  what  you 
cannot  be  certain  of  in  any  other  nation  on  earth.  The 
British  army,  we  hear,  is  ready  to  go  anywhere  and  do  any- 
thing ;  but  when  we  say  that,  we  are  talking  only  of  the 
temper  of  its  officers  and  men.  In  the  German  army  the 
men  are  ready,  and  the  plan,  the  railway-carriages,  the  gas 
for  the  war-balloons,  and  the  nails  for  the  horse-stores,  are 
all  ready  too. 

It  is  wonderful ;  but  there  is  one  thing  about  the  Ger- 
man army  more  wonderful  still.  In  the  organization  of 
civil  life  and  government  the  tendency  of  Germany  appears 
to  be  towards  the  resolute  suppression  of  the  individual. 
You  are  not  to  think,  to  decide,  to  act  for  yourself;  the 
Government,  the  police,  think  and  decide,  and  you  are  to 


254  GERMANY 

do  what  they  tell  you.  In  the  army  it  is  exactly  the  oppo- 
site. Subordination,  discipline,  certainly — but  also  quick 
and  independent  judgment,  initiative,  fearless  assumption  of 
responsibility.  "  Without  shirking  from  responsibility  " — 
so  runs  the  Kaiser's  regulations — "  every  officer  in  all  cir- 
cumstances, however  unusual,  is  to  stake  his  whole  being 
on  the  accomplishment  of  his  mission,  even  without  wait- 
ing for  orders." 

It  seems  a  strange  self-contradiction  this  insistence  on 
the  development  of  initiative  in  the  army  by  the  side  of  its 
systematic  repression  elsewhere.  But  the  answer  would 
probably  be  that  in  civil  life  the  citizen  is  as  the  private, 
the  police  as  the  officer.  The  officer  does  not  begin  to  face 
responsibility  till  he  becomes  a  captain — but  then  he  gets 
his  fill  of  it.  The  training  of  his  company — or  squadron  or 
battery — is  left  to  his  own  unaided  judgment.  He  decides 
what  exercises  shall  be  undertaken,  when  and  how  often ; 
he  alone  has  the  administration,  the  discipline,  and  punish- 
ment of  his  company  in  his  hands.  Inside  the  company  he 
is  supreme ;  his  superiors  are  only  concerned  with  the  fit- 
ness of  the  company  when  the  captain  has  made  it.  Thus 
the  major  takes  his  four  companies  and  is  responsible  for 
their  training  as  a  battalion;  the  colonel  takes  his  three 
battalions  and  makes  a  regiment  of  them.  Thus,  all 
through  the  military  year,  the  training  goes  on,  in  higher 
and  higher  units,  till  the  recruits  are  welded  into  brigades, 
divisions,  and  army  corps,  and  as  such  exercised  at  the 
manoeuvres.  None  of  the  higher  officers  is  burdened  with 
the  routine  of  the  unit  below :  he  gives  himself  whole- 
heartedly to  his  battalion,  his  regiment,  his  brigade,  his 
division,  his  corps — to  perfecting  each  for  its  work  in  the 
field,  and  to  directing  the  perfected  force  in  action. 


ON  THE  GERMAN  ARMY          255 

In  the  manoeuvres  you  could  see  the  system  in  action, 
in  the  snap  and  go  and  dash  at  every  point.  The  men 
looked  bumpkins,  but  they  were  bumpkins  drilled  into 
unswerving,  unhesitating  obedience.  A  battery  was  sur- 
prised by  infantry  fire :  one  word  and  the  guns  were  in 
line,  the  limbers  were  unhooked  and  falling  behind,  the 
guns  were  shipped  round  and  flashing  imaginary  shell  before 
you  quite  realized  that  the  battery  was  there.  The  cavalry 
came  into  line  like  the  turn  of  a  kaleidoscope.  The  in- 
fantry opened  fire,  charged,  fell  back,  lined  up,  and  opened 
fire  again,  charged  again,  on  either  side,  like  a  smart  rally 
at  tennis.  No  officer  was  content  to  rest  on  the  defensive; 
a  glimpse  of  an  opening,  and  he  was  up  and  at  the  enemy. 
The  captain  knew  his  company ;  he  had  made  it,  and  his 
career  depended  on  the  way  he  had  made  it.  Each  higher 
officer  knew  what  he  could  do  with  what  he  had.  Within 
that  limit  he  was  untrammelled  in  the  doing  of  it,  and 
could  give  his  whole  heart  and  head  freely  to  doing  it  with 
the  intensest  energy.  It  impressed  you  as  a  mighty,  resist- 
less machine,  all  in  one  piece,  and  yet  working  quite  freely 
in  every  joint.  Each  wheel  seemed  flying  round  on  its 
own  account,  yet  you  could  see  that  the  guides  and  con- 
necting rods — smooth,  well-oiled  but  fast-fixed — were  com- 
bining and  regulating  the  whole. 

Nothing  overlooked,  nothing  neglected,  everything  prac- 
ticed, everything  welded  together,  and  yet  everything  alive 
and  fighting.  The  highest  unity  with  the  most  strenuous 
individuality.  The  army  is  a  machine.  Yet  the  men 
remain  men.  And  what  should  we  do  if  100,000  of  this 
kind  of  army  got  loose  in  England  ?  Volunteers  ?  Good 
Lord ! 


AT  THE  KAISER  MANOEUVRES 

G.  W.  STEEPENS 

THE  gentlemen  of  the  press  assembled  in  the  railway 
station  of  Frankfurt  at  half-past  five  every  morn- 
ing ;  there  they  met  the  officer  of  the  great  general 
staff  appointed  to  give  them  information  concerning  the 
manoeuvres. 

To  each  he  distributed  an  account  of  the  forces  engaged, 
a  summary  of  the  preceding  day's  operations,  a  map  show- 
ing the  position  of  the  troops,  and  a  sketch  of  the  idea 
governing  the  operations  of  the  day.  Each  journalist  had 
his  pass,  enabling  him  to  wander  as  he  liked  over  the  whole 
ground :  when  he  had  got  his  information  from  the  Herr 
Major  he  could  act  upon  it  as  he  deemed  best.  The 
arrangement  gave  him  plenty  of  discretion.  The  country 
covered  by  the  manoeuvres  was  fifty  miles  by  twenty-five, 
the  force  engaged  four  Army  Corps — two  Prussian,  two 
Bavarian — of  three  divisions  apiece,  with  three  independ- 
ent Cavalry  divisions.  Say  roughly,  a  country  the  size  of 
Wiltshire,  and  a  force  equal  to  the  British  army  in  Britain. 
Substitute  ball-cartridges  for  blank,  and  the  two  armies  were 
operating  exactly  under  the  conditions  of  war. 

The  generals  commanding  knew  roughly  the  strength  of 
the  enemy :  where  he  was  and  what  he  was  doing  each  had 
to  find  out  for  himself — that  was  the  exercise  of  the  first 
day.  It  had  been  raining  since  midnight.  At  half-past 
six,  as  I  climbed  slowly  up  the  high  ground  north-east  of 
Frankfurt,  the  roads  were  already  like  rice-pudding ;  the 


AT  THE  KAISER  MANOEUVRES     257 

ploughed  fields  clung  to  boots  and  horse  shoes  till  they  felt 
like  the  leaden  soles  of  the  diver ;  the  pastures  were  like  a 
soaked  sponge,  and  the  heavens  were  opened  like  a  sieve. 
The  beautiful  blue-marked  maps  were  pulp  in  my  pocket 
before  I  saw  the  first  soldier.  Then,  trotting  along  the 
streaming  road,  I  came  up  with  a  string  of  waggons — the 
baggage  of  the  advance-guard.  The  infantry  escort  had 
covers  over  their  helmets ;  they  were  squeezing  water  out 
of  their  Wellington  boots  by  the  bucket ;  they  had  been  on 
the  road  since  three  in  the  morning ;  yet  they  were  lighting 
cigars  with  cheerfulness,  and  grinned  as  they  asked  me  if  I 
had  seen  anything  of  the  Bavarians. 

As  the  broad-faced  peasant  asked  the  question  came  the 
muffled  thud  of  guns  away  on  the  right.  I  rode  up  a  long 
hill  of  stubble,  and  looked  out  over  a  grey  half  country  of 
hill  and  valley,  wood,  and  mud,  and  water,  to  see  what  it 
was.  Miles  away  on  the  left  a  wisp  of  smoke  was  just 
melting  into  the  drizzle  ;  miles  away  in  front  came  a  couple 
of  sparks,  washed  out  again  in  an  instant,  and  then,  a 
minute  after,  a  couple  of  thuds.  That  was  the  beginning. 
That  was  the  horse  artillery  attached  to  the  reconnoitring 
cavalry ;  they  had  found  the  enemy,  and  were  trying  a  shot 
or  two  to  tempt  him  to  reply  and  show  his  hand.  I  de- 
scried, in  the  direction  of  the  fire,  a  church  steeple,  appar- 
ently just  being  washed  off  the  sky-line  of  a  bare  hill,  and 
rode  towards  it.  When  I  got  there  I  found  infantry  knap- 
sacks and  cooking-pans,  overcoats  and  water-bottles,  rifles 
and  cartridge-pouches.  These  boys  of  twenty  had  been 
scrunching  through  slush  and  gravel  since  half-past  one  in 
the  morning.  It  was  now  ten  ;  but  bent  a  little  forward 
under  the  weight  on  their  backs,  with  tight  belts,  and  pale 
faces,  and  lips  gripped  together,  they  scrunched  heavily  on. 


258  GERMANY 

However,  the  operations  for  the  day  were  already  almost 
over.  Presently  I  came  to  the  leading  battalions  of  the 
Prussian  force :  they  had  piled  arms  on  either  side  of  a  road 
which  ran  through  a  wood;  they  had  got  their  packs  off, 
and  were  soaking  placidly  on  the  ground.  Generals  and 
adjutants  and  umpires,  in  long  mauve-grey  overcoats, 
sploshed  up  and  down,  saluting  rigidly.  Just  in  front  the 
cavalry  were  feeling  for  the  enemy.  At  each  turn  in  the 
road,  at  each  break  in  the  trees,  you  came  on  a  little  clump 
of  a  dozen  or  half-dozen  Uhlans.  They  would  be  moving 
along  at  a  wary  walk.  Then  the  clump  would  split  up. 
One  man  disappeared  down  a  grass  ridge  through  the  wood, 
another  rode  cautiously  to  a  cottage,  stole  round  it  silently, 
and  brushed  the  drops  from  his  helmet  as  he  peered  through 
the  rain  ;  another  rode  up  to  a  little  knoll  and  did  his  best 
to  obliterate  himself  under  a  tree  ;  from  time  to  time  each 
returned  and  reported  to  the  lieutenant  or  sergeant  in  com- 
mand. I  rode  past  them  and  then  suddenly  met  a  couple 
of  riders  prying  through  the  trees  :  this  was  the  beginning 
of  the  Bavarians.  Next  moment  there  was  a  heavy  tramp- 
ling along  the  road,  and  up  swung  a  battalion  of  blue 
Bavarian  infantry.  Without  a  moment's  pause  they 
wheeled  to  the  right,  breaking  in  the  instant  into  companies 
in  line,  and  then,  bent  a  little  forward,  rifles  ready,  moved 
swiftly  towards  the  trees  where  the  Prussian  battalions  had 
piled  arms.  A  crack,  two  cracks,  a  rattle — the  armies 
were  in  touch  and  the  righting  had  begun.  And  for  that 
day  it  was  over.  The  day's  work  was  to  get  in  touch  of 
the  enemy — a  race  for  position.  It  had  been  done  thor- 
oughly, strenuously,  exactly  as  in  war.  And  now,  what 
next  ?  The  men  had  been  eight  hours  on  the  march  in  a 
never-ceasing  alternation  of  drizzle  and  downpour.  To 


AT  THE  KAISER  MANOEUVRES     259 

make  them  bivouac  in  two  inches  of  water  would  be  to  in- 
vite the  country's  defenders  to  die  of  inflammation  and 
rheumatic  fever.  So  they  were  billeted.  From  house  to 
house,  over  1,200  square  miles,  went  soldiers  with  little  bits 
of  paper  quartering  the  troops — in  this  house  five  men,  in 
that  an  officer  or  two ;  here  four  horses,  there  a  gun.  The 
possibility  had  been  foreseen,  but  until  the  last  moment  it 
had  been  intended  to  bivouac.  Yet  in  four  hours  100,000 
men,  and  heaven  knows  how  many  horses,  guns,  and  wag- 
gons, were  safely  under  shelter.  No  confusion,  no  per- 
plexity, no  hitch.  That  is  the  German  army. 

The  fourth  day  was  even  more  eloquent.  It  had  been 
arranged  that  the  Prussians  were  in  retreat,  and  the  day's 
exercise  was  for  cavalry  to  break  them  up.  The  Kaiser 
himself  took  command  of  the  cavalry,  and  to  give  him  a 
force  worthy  of  a  Kaiser  the  divisions  of  both  sides  were 
combined  in  one  corps.  But  then  the  retreating  Prussians 
must  have  cavalry  too.  So  somebody  said  a  word,  and  at 
dawn  a  new  cavalry  division  had  appeared  in  the  field.  Six 
thousand  men,  fully  horsed,  fully  accoutred  for  war,  had 
been  called  up  from  somewhere  at  a  moment's  notice,  and 
there  they  were  ready.  I  don't  know  where  they  came 
from,  perhaps  from  Metz,  perhaps  from  Magdeburg,  it  does 
not  matter.  At  the  word  of  command  there  they  instantly 
were  ready.  That,  again,  is  the  German  army. 

There  had  been  two  days  of  heavy  fighting  in  between. 
No  one  man  could  have  seen  the  whole  of  it,  for  the  line 
was  ten  miles  long,  but  it  was  presumably  all  the  same,  in- 
fantry lying  down  in  line,  hostile  infantry  lying  down  oppo- 
site them,  a  lively  crackle  of  fire,  and  the  guns  booming 
behind.  Then  on  one  side  a  harsh  yell  of  command  ;  one 
line  springs  up  and  makes  a  rush  over  the  field  and  through 


26o  GERMANY 

the  tree  trunks  at  the  other.  Half-way  they  lie  down,  and 
their  fire  rings  out  again  as  that  of  the  opposite  line  slack- 
ens. Then  up  spring  the  assailants  again  and  rush  on. 
"  Lively  fire,"  yells  the  captain  in  the  defending  line. 
"  Lively  fire,"  roar  the  sergeants  after  him.  The  guns  are 
suddenly  hushed  as  the  attacking  line  makes  its  last  rush ; 
the  captains'  and  sergeants'  whistles  scream  on  the  other, 
and  the  blank  cartridges  spit  out  a  breathless  rush  of  fire. 
Then  the  two  lines  stand  panting  and  grinning  at  each 
other  ten  yards  apart.  "  How's  that,  umpire  ?  "  "  Suc- 
cessful charge,"  says  the  umpire,  and  the  defenders  troop 
back  to  a  new  position.  Or  else  "  Unsuccessful,"  and  the 
defending  peasants  guffaw  as  the  assailants  troop  back  to 
begin  over  again. 

The  Kaiser's  day  was  different.  I  stood  on  a  long  hill 
and  watched  the  Prussians  in  retreat.  Down  at  the  bottom 
on  one  side  the  last  battalion  was  marching  in  solid  column 
along  a  valley  road ;  at  the  other  side  were  stealing  up  the 
blue  uniforms  of  a  weak  Bavarian  bicycle  corps.  Suddenly, 
miles  away  on  the  left,  came  a  few  horsemen  riding  swiftly 
over  the  extreme  shoulder  of  the  hill.  Then  the  black 
mass  of  a  squadron,  the  silhouette  of  a  horse  battery,  and 
then  mass  on  mass,  a  whole  division,  6,000  sabres,  glided 
swiftly  into  sight.  Farther  still  on  the  sky-line,  another 
gliding  mass,  another  pursuing  division.  The  retreating 
battalion  had  left  the  road  now ;  it  was  trudging  patiently 
up  the  opposite  hill,  the  long  lines  of  four  companies,  one 
behind  the  other.  The  infantry  could  not  see  the  hunting 
cavalry,  the  hunters  were  almost  tumbling  over  the  quarry. 
The  foremost  riders  reined  up,  whipped  round,  and  galloped 
furiously  back.  They  had  seen  them:  but  the  infantry 
trudged  on  up  the  hill.  For  the  Kaiser  it  was  a  critical 


AT  THE  KAISER  MANOEUVRES     261 

moment.  The  leader  of  a  cavalry  corps  must  be  a  man  of 
steel  nerves  and  instant  decision  :  cavalry  has  no  time  to 
balance  chances.  And  in  the  instant  the  Kaiser  decided. 
The  huge  black  mass  swayed  and  parted,  and  the  bulk  of  it 
disappeared  rapidly  over  the  sky-line ;  the  Kaiser  was  going 
on  to  strike  at  the  bulk  of  the  retreating  division  farther  on. 
But  there  remained  the  blotch  of  one  regiment  and  one 
battery.  Hastily  the  battery  broke  up  into  six  guns,  un- 
limbered,  was  flashing  imaginary  shrapnel  into  the  plodding 
infantry.  The  cavalry  spread  itself  as  by  machinery 
into  line;  without  check  or  hesitation  it  rode  down  the 
hill,  across  the  road,  up  again  until  it  was  on  a  level  with 
the  infantry.  The  battalion  would  be  caught  on  its  flank, 
and  rolled  up  like  paper :  what  were  its  officers  looking  at  ? 
But  as  the  thundering  line  swept  down  on  it  the  hoarse 
echo  of  an  order  floated  across  the  valley.  There  was  the 
turn  and  click  of  a  kaleidoscope,  and  the  infantry  were  not 
four  lines  marching  up  hill  but  one  lying  down  facing  the 
charge.  The  cavalry  flew  on — horses  leaping  and  plung- 
ing, but  level  as  if  they  were  tied  together — out  spurted  the 
rifle  fire,  on  flew  the  chargers.  Then  twenty  yards  off  they 
stopped,  two-thirds  of  the  line  opposite  the  infantry,  one- 
third  lapping  round  its  left  flank.  A  word  from  the  umpire, 
the  charge  had  succeeded.  The  guns  had  shaken  the  in- 
fantry ;  the  charge  had  broken  it ;  the  outflanking  squadrons 
had  stamped  it  to  pieces. 

Meanwhile  the  Kaiser  had  ridden  on  four  miles,  and  was 
repeating  the  process  on  a  big  scale  with  the  main  body  of 
the  retreating  division.  In  front  of  a  pale  village  with  a 
square  church  tower  I  could  just  see  wave  after  wave  of 
cavalry  sweeping  over  the  fields  as  if  devouring  them.  I 
could  see  the  flash  of  the  guns  and  the  rippling  blaze  of  the 


262  GERMANY 

infantry  fire.  When  I  got  up  they  had  just  charged  home, 
and  the  division  was  collecting  itself  again.  The  Kaiser 
had  come  up  swiftly  across  country  in  just  the  right  place  at 
just  the  right  moment,  he  had  never  lost  a  moment  by  hesi- 
tation, yet  he  had  not  struck  till  the  moment  when  his  blow 
must  be  crushing.  I  wonder  how  many  men  could  take 
12,000  riders  ten  miles  across  a  strange  country,  plump 
into  the  middle  of  the  enemy,  and  fall  on  him  unexpected 
at  the  instant  when  he  was  exposed  ?  For  my  ignorance  it 
seems  almost  superhuman.  An  average  Emperor  possibly, 
but  a  most  brilliant  cavalry  general. 


STUDENT  LIFE 

A.  H.  BATNES 

IN  considering  a  German  student's  course,  there  is  per- 
haps nothing  that  strikes  one  so  much  as  his  freedom 
from  restraint.  There  is  at  the  outset  no  matricula- 
tion examination,  no  "  necessary  subjects  "  to  be  got  up  for 
preliminary  examinations  of  any  kind.  In  order  to  ma- 
triculate, it  is  only  necessary  for  him  to  produce  the  cer- 
tificate of  having  passed  the  exit  examination  of  school 
or  gymnasium.  Armed  with  this,  he  calls  at  the  university 
offices,  enters  his  name,  pays  his  fee,  and  receives  a  book 
in  which  the  list  of  his  lectures  is  to  be  entered,  and  his 
student's  card.  The  card  is  important  as  a  means  of 
identification,  and  in  this  respect  takes  the  place  of  the  cap 
and  gown.  A  student  can  be  fined  for  not  having  it  in  his 
pocket ;  but  on  the  other  hand  he  has  no  interest  in  being 
without  it,  as  it  carries  with  it  certain  privileges,  and  more- 
over, in  matters  of  discipline,  delivers  him  from  the  juris- 
diction of  the  municipal  authorities. 

At  the  time  of  matriculating  the  student  selects  the  sub- 
ject which  he  intends  to  study.  He  is  free  to  choose 
philology,  theology,  philosophy,  law,  mathematics,  science, 
or  whatever  it  may  be,  and  this  he  does  at  the  very  outset. 
He  is  not  required  to  split  up  his  course  by  spending  half 
of  it  in  continuation  of  school  work.  He  is  a  specialist 
from  the  first. 

The  process  of  matriculation  is,  however,  not  yet  com- 


264  GERMANY 

plete.  Two  days  later,  he  is  summoned  before  the  pro- 
rector  and  is  formally  admitted  by  shaking  hands,  after  a 
few  words  of  advice  and  exhortation. 

The  next  thing  to  be  done  is  to  select  lectures.  This  is 
often  no  easy  business.  Such  a  wealth  of  subjects  appears 
in  the  professors'  announcements  that  it  seems  as  if  the 
whole  field  of  human  knowledge  were  covered  in  a  single 
semester's  lectures.  There  is,  however,  no  immediate  ne- 
cessity to  come  to  a  final  decision  as  to  whom  you  will 
hear.  (A  German  professor  does  not  "  lecture,"  he  reads, 
and  the  student  "  hears.")  There  is  not  only  no  restriction 
as  to  what  lecture  the  student  attends,  but  there  is  every 
facility  for  him  to  please  himself.  He  is  free  to  give  every 
lecturer  a  trial  for  a  week  or  so.  This  attendance  in  the 
capacity  rather  of  a  guest  than  of  a  regular  attendant  is 
known  by  the  term  "  Hospitiren."  After  a  week  or  two 
the  student  is  expected  to  settle  down  to  the  lectures  he 
prefers,  and  then  he  pays  the  proper  fees  to  the  quaestor, 
and  shortly  after  makes  a  formal  call  on  the  professor  to 
obtain  his  signature  in  the  "  dnmeldungs-buch" 

To  be  correct,  the  student  is  usually  expected  to  make 
his  call  between  twelve  and  one,  attired  in  full  evening 
dress,  including  white  gloves.  He  is  as  likely  as  not  to 
find  the  professor  in  slippers,  dressing-gown  (with  what 
looks  very  much  like  a  night-shirt  beneath)  and  long  pipe. 

The  days  of  "  Hospitiren  "  being  over,  the  student  set- 
tles down  to  his  lectures  for  the  semester,  which  lasts  about 
four  months,  and  the  professors  do  not  spare  themselves. 
A  professor  seldom  lectures  less  than  four  hours  a  week. 
I  have  heard  of  professors  who  lecture  on  an  average  three 
hours  daily  throughout  the  semester. 

The  lecture  room  is  large  and  bare,  with  rows  of  desks 


STUDENT  LIFE  265 

and  a  raised  seat  at  one  end.  Almost  invariably,  every 
student  is  in  his  place  before  the  quarter  past  the  hour 
strikes,  when  the  professor  enters  punctually;  and,  almost 
before  he  is  in  his  seat,  one  hears  the  invariable  introduc- 
tion, "  Meine  Herren"  If  a  student  is  late,  he  receives 
his  reproof,  not  from  the  professor,  but  from  the  scraping 
boots  of  his  fellow-students.  The  common  plan  of  lec- 
turing is  to  spend  about  half-an-hour  in  tolerably  rapid  dis- 
cussion of  the  subject,  and  the  remaining  quarter  in  delib- 
erate dictation  of  a  summary  of  the  lecture.  The  notes 
are  always  taken  in  small  packets  of  paper  stitched  together 
which  can  be  added  to  according  to  need,  and  these 
manuscript  notes  (or  "  Heft "  as  they  are  called)  are  avail- 
able, not  only  for  the  student  himself,  but  for  any  one 
studying  the  subject.  One  continually  sees  notices  posted 
in  a  university,  "  Wanted,  notes  of  Professor 's  lec- 
tures for  such  and  such  a  semester." 

Attendance  at  a  certain  number  of  lectures  is  necessary, 
but  this  requirement  is  very  liberally  understood.  The 
professor's  signature  in  the  "  Anmeldungs-bucb  "  is  the  only 
evidence  of 'attendance  required;  and  this  signature  is  only 
refused  in  cases  of  constant  non-attendance.  The  professor 
has  no  roll-call,  and  in  the  larger  universities  has  hardly 
any  means  of  noting  who  is  present.  Very  commonly,  at- 
tendance at  the  beginning  and  end  of  the  semester  would 
secure  the  professor's  signature. 

Perhaps  the  most  important  department  of  this  "  Freiheit " 
is  the  freedom  to  pass  from  one  university  to  another  with- 
out interruption  to  the  regular  course.  The  only  formali- 
ties to  be  observed  are  for  the  student  to  obtain  a  certificate 
of  honourable  dismissal  from  the  university  he  is  leaving, 
and  to  deposit  this,  together  with  a  small  fee,  with  the 


266  GERMANY 

secretary  of  the  university  he  is  joining  ;  and  he  is  then  ad- 
mitted to  re-matriculation  by  the  ordinary  process  of  hand- 
shaking. The  advantages  of  this  freedom  are  obvious. 
The  student  can  graduate  his  course  of  lectures,  and  can 
arrange  to  "  hear  "  all  the  most  distinguished  professors  on 
his  subject  in  Germany. 

There  are  other  minor  advantages  in  this  freedom  to 
change  from  one  university  to  another.  For  instance,  a 
student  at  the  outset  of  his  course,  and  fresh  from  the 
severe  work  of  his  gymnasium  examination,  often  avails 
himself  of  his  liberty  to  enjoy  himself,  and  see  life  a  little 
before  plunging  again  into  hard  work.  For  this,'he  will 
probably  choose  a  university  where  the  life  is  "flott"  such 
as  Heidelberg  or  Jena.  After  a  semester  or  two  thus 
passed  he  can  break  away  from  the  companionships  he  has 
made,  and  start  afresh  in  a  new  university  with  no  hin- 
drance (beyond  the  habits  he  has  formed)  to  hard-work. 
Students  even  change  their  universities  according  to  the 
season,  choosing  Heidelberg,  or  Bonn,  or  Jena  for  the 
summer  semester,  and  one  of  the  large  towns,  Berlin, 
Leipzig,  or  Vienna  for  the  winter. 

From  the  time  the  "  Obiturienten-Examen "  (the  ex- 
amination on  leaving  the  gymnasium)  is  passed  there  is  no 
further  examination  until  the  student  is  at  the  end  of  his  un- 
dergraduate days. 

The  degree  examination  is  peculiar  in  many  ways. 
First,  it  is  a  private  individual  affair;  and,  secondly,  it  is  not 
competitive.  About  half  a  year  before  the  student  has 
completed  his  six  semesters,  he  makes  a  formal  application 
to  be  examined,  sending  in  at  the  same  time  his  "  Anmel- 
dungs-buch  "  with  the  signatures  of  the  professors  whose 
lectures  he  has  attended.  If  these  papers  are  satisfactory, 


STUDENT  LIFE  267 

he  has  assigned  to  him  a  subject,  or  choice  of  subjects  on 
which  to  write  a  dissertation.  This  work,  which  is 
usually  of  considerable  dimensions,  must  show  originality, 
and  a  sufficiently  deep  and  wide  grasp  of  the  subject. 

If  the  "  Arbeit "  is  satisfactory,  a  day  is  appointed  for  the 
rest  of  the  examination.  But  here  again  great  freedom  is 
allowed.  The  examination  being  a  private  and  separate 
affair  for  each  student,  and  there  being  no  competition,  he 
can  on  reasonable  grounds  obtain  a  postponement.  The 
system  is  throughout  elastic,  and  proceeds  on  the  assump- 
tion that  the  student  is  no  longer  a  schoolboy,  but  a 
rational  being  in  earnest  in  the  search  for  knowledge.  The 
examination  is  viva  voce^  and  occupies  some  hours.  It 
must  be  remembered,  however,  that  the  ground  has  been 
already  traversed  in  the  written  "  Arbeit"  and  that  that  is 
the  backbone  of  the  examination.  When  the  viva  voce 
is  satisfactorily  passed,  the  candidate  is  eligible  for  the 
Doctor's  degree.  Shortly  afterwards  he  is  formally  pre- 
sented with  his  diploma.  He  has  now  risen  out  of  that  in- 
Germany-much-to-be-pitied  class — the  great  untitled,  and 
henceforward  in  private  and  public  is  addressed  as  Herr 
Doctor. 

In  German  universities  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  col- 
lege where  the  students  live  together.  From  the  moment  a 
student  enters  the  university  he  is  as  free  and  unfettered  as 
any  other  citizen.  If  there  is  any  difference  it  is  in  his 
favour.  The  first  thing  for  him  to  do  is  to  choose  a 
lodging.  The  student's  room  is  probably  a  good  deal  more 
simply  furnished  than  the  English  undergraduate's.  Instead 
of  the  pictures  of  school  and  college  eights,  or  elevens  or 
fifteens,  will  probably  be  found  photographs  of  the  student's 
corps;  and  instead  of  cricket  bats  and  tennis  rackets,  old 


268  GERMANY 

"  Scklagers"  (duelling-swords)  and  basket  helmets.  The 
German  takes  much  less  pride  in  his  room,  and  bestows 
less  attention  on  it  than  the  Englishman,  because  with  the 
former  it  is  a  mere  work  room.  He  seldom  entertains  his 
friends  in  it.  There  are  none  of  the  delightful  breakfast, 
luncheon,  and  supper  parties  in  the  student's  room.  Not 
even  the  "  wine,"  and  the  card  parties  take  place  in  the 
student's  lodgings.  All  such  entertainments  are  given  at 
the  restaurant  or  the  corps  room.  Possibly,  however,  what 
is  lost  in  social  enjoyment  by  the  absence  of  private  festivi- 
ties is  gained  in  work.  Students  scarcely  ever  share  the 
same  room,  and  hence  the  "  Wobnung  "  is  kept  religiously 
for  each  man's  private  study. 

The  best  explanation  of  the  persistence  of  the  institution 
of  duelling  is  that  it  is  the  German  student's  one  and  only 
active  amusement — it  meets  the  needs  which  with  us  are 
met  by  cricket,  football,  rowing,  etc.  The  various  corps 
in  a  university  are  just  like  so  many  college  boating  or 
other  clubs  with  us.  By  far  the  greater  part  of  the  duel- 
ling is  simply  a  trial  of  skill  between  the  representatives  of 
rival  corps.  For  instance,  the  members  of  each  corps  are 
ranked  numerically  according  to  their  standing  of  seniority 
and  fighting  proficiency.  Every  time  that  No.  4  of  a  cer- 
tain corps  is  promoted  to  the  third  place,  he  is  expected  to 
show  his  qualifications  for  the  more  exalted  honour  by 
challenging  in  turn  No.  3  of  each  of  the  other  corps.  He 
may  of  course  allow  sufficient  intervals  for  the  wounds  of 
one  duel  to  heal  before  the  next ;  but  he  has  not  vindicated 
the  honour  of  his  corps  till  he  has  fought  his  way  through 
all  the  other  No.  3'$.  To  bring  about  these  duels  he  either 
watches  for  an  opportunity  of  falling  foul  of  the  man  he  is 
to  fight,  or  else  he  sends  a  friend  who  politely  and  cere- 


STUDENT  LIFE  269 

moniously  calls  on  his  opponent  with  a  formal  insult. 
14  Empfehlung  von  Herrn — und  er  schickt  Ihnen  ein  '  dummer 

yunge.' "     (Mr. 's  compliments,  and  he  sends  you 

a  "  young  fool.")  But  the  quarrel  may  be  provoked,  in 
much  less  formal  manner,  by  a  push  or  a  refusal  to  make 
room.  The  offended  party  thereupon  offers  his  card  and 
politely  asks  for  that  of  his  opponent.  Everything  is  cere- 
moniously civil.  "  Darf  ich  urn  die  Karte  bitten  ?  "  "  Sehr 
angenehm"  This  exchange  of  cards  is  followed  up  by  a 
call  from  a  friend  of  the  offended  party  in  which  he  asks  if 
the  other  will  withdraw  the  opprobrious  epithet.  The 
common  form  of  refusal  would  be  "  Es  f'dllt  mir  gar  nicht 
ein"  ("  I  shouldn't  think  of  it.")  The  envoy  then  asks 
for  satisfaction,  and  the  duel  is  arranged.  There  are 
various  terms  on  which  the  encounter  can  be  fixed,  ac- 
cording to  the  aggravation  of  the  insult  or  the  ambition  of 
the  parties.  Within  the  limits  of  ordinary  student  duel- 
ling— which  is  with  "  Schlager  "  and  not  with  sabre  or  pis- 
tol— the  extreme  form  of  challenge  is  "  ohne  Mutzen  und 
Secundanten "  (without  caps  and  seconds),  or,  as  it  is 
termed  in  the  technical  abbreviation,  "  ohne  ohne." 

Steadfastly  resolving  to  suppress  my  insular  prejudices 
and  to  judge  with  unbiassed  mind,  I  went  to  the  duelling 
room.  Perhaps  the  closeness  of  the  room,  thick  with  the 
confined  tobacco  of  yesterday's  festivities,  or  the  bathos  of 
students  eating  sausages  during  the  encounter,  or  the  busi- 
nesslike indifference  of  the  waiters  passing  in  and  out,  or 
the  fumes  of  the  cigars  before  breakfast  on  a  hot  summer 
morning,  or  the  grotesqueness  of  the  padding  and  iron 
spectacles  were  conditions  unfavourable  to  the  heroic.  I 
must  confess  that  when  the  blood  began  to  ooze  and  spurt, 
every  other  feeling  gave  way  to  an  invincible  nausea  and 


270  GERMANY 

disgust.  I  certainly  had  not  realized  that  there  could  be  so 
much  bloodshed  with  so  little  damage.  Knowing  that 
these  duels  were  scarcely  ever  attended  with  any  danger,  I 
had  imagined  that  the  first  slit  decided  them.  But  I  found 
that  the  rule  was  ten  minutes  of  actual  fighting  (pauses  not 
counted)  for  freshmen  (  "  Fuchse  "  ),  and  a  quarter  of  an 
hour  for  seniors  (  "  Burschen  "  ),  unless  an  artery  were  cut. 
This  I  discovered  in  cases  like  the  present,  where  the  duel 
was  one-sided,  meant  considerable  use  of  the  sponge  and 
mop. 

Hitherto  I  have  only  spoken  of  ordinary  student  duel- 
ling— that,  namely,  which  is  conducted  with  the  "  Schlager" 
a  long  and  very  thin  sword  with  basket  hilt,  sharpened  only 
at  the  tip.  In  this  kind  of  duel,  the  combatants  are  padded 
all  over  the  body  to  the  knees,  the  right  arm  is  guarded 
with  very  thick  bandages,  and  the  neck  and  eyes  with 
enormous,  stiff",  black  stocks,  and  big,  round,  iron  spectacles. 
The  parrying  is  done  with  the  sword  arm,  which  is  held 
above  the  head.  The  object  is  to  whip  the  "  Schlager " 
over  the  opponent's  sword  arm  so  as  to  reach  the  face. 
The  blows  are  given  so  fast  that  one  sees  nothing,  but 
only  hears  the  constant  thud  on  the  padded  arm.  The 
seconds,  who  stand  in  a  straddling  attitude  (almost  be- 
neath the  principals)  with  drawn  swords,  have  to  stop  the 
encounter  by  striking  the  swords  up  whenever  they  see  a 
touch.  The  umpire,  who  stands  by,  gives  the  signal 
"  las  !  "  for  beginning,  and  takes  notes  in  a  pocket-book  of 
the  wounds  inflicted. 

This  kind  of  duelling  is  winked  at  by  the  authorities. 
But  occasionally,  perhaps  on  an  average  twice  in  a  semester 
at  a  single  university,  a  much  more  serious  encounter  takes 
place.  This  is  a  regular  sabre  duelling  with  no  bandages 


STUDENT  LIFE  271 

except  the  throat  guard.  It  is,  of  course,  strictly  prohib- 
ited. In  consequence,  it  is  kept  much  more  secret  and  I 
should  probably  have  heard  less  about  it,  but  for  an  un- 
fortunate instance  in  which  one  such  duel  ended  fatally. 
The  trial  of  the  survivor,  which  I  attended,  was  rather  a 
revelation  to  me.  It  proved  that  the  true  explanation  of 
the  duel,  even  in  its  extreme  form,  is  the  only  outlet  for 
athletic  rivalry.  Even  in  this  case  the  quarrel  had  been  in- 
tentionally provoked  by  the  deceased  from  ambition  to  es- 
tablish a  reputation.  He  had  accordingly  selected  an  op- 
ponent of  fighting  fame  in  one  of  the  best  corps  (the 
"  Hannoveraners  "  ),  and  had  aggravated  the  offence  in  or- 
der to  ensure  a  challenge  to  sabre  instead  of  "  Schlager" 
Being  a  German,  he  had  no  outlet  for  his  ambition — no 
way  of  showing  his  strength  or  skill — but  in  the  duel  in 
which  he  lost  his  life. 

The  subject  of  duelling  naturally  suggests  the  other 
prominent  feature  of  the  corps  student's  life.  This  is  the 
"  Kneipe"  I  am  afraid  it  must  be  confessed  that  the 
student's  two  great  recommendations  to  social  fame  are, 
first,  the  number  of  faces  he  has  succeeded  in  gashing; 
and,  second,  the  number  of  gallons  of  weak  beer  he  has 
been  known  to  consume  at  a  sitting.  Not  that  there  is 
any  great  amount  of  drunkenness ;  the  beer  is  too  weak  for 
that.  Quantity,  not  quality,  is  the  thing  aimed  at.  But  it 
is  a  coarse  and  tedious  proceeding.  Its  dulness  is  not  even 
relieved  by  the  devilry  of  a  big  Oxford  "  wine."  "  It  is 
worse  than  sinful,  it  is  vulgar." 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  here,  as  everywhere,  the 
German  student  is  elaborately  ceremonious, — ceremony  pre- 
vails everywhere.  Even  friends  scarcely  ever  meet  without 
lifting  their  hats  to  each  other,  and  distant  acquaintances 


272  GERMANY 

would  not  think  of  omitting  it.  Introductions  are  essential 
Rather  than  enter  into  a  conversation  without  introduction, 
a  student  will  formally  introduce  himself.  If  at  a  regular 
table-d'hote  a  student  has  a  place  allotted  to  him  between 
students  whom  he  does  not  know,  he  takes  the  first  oppor- 
tunity of  rising  in  his  place,  and  with  an  elaborate  bow 
introduces  himself.  Whereupon  the  others  return  the 
compliment  with  the  same  ceremony,  and  inform  him  of 
their  own  names.  The  same  dignified  formality  prevents 
anything  approaching  familiarity  even  among  friends.  There 
is  never  any  slapping  on  the  back  or  digging  in  the  ribs — 
much  less  any  "  bally-ragging."  But  this  ceremonial  for- 
mality is  best  seen  at  the  "  Kneipe"  There  is  an  elab- 
orate code  of  etiquette  in  drinking,  any  breach  of  which  is 
punished  by  what  we  should  call  a  "  sconce  " — that  is  a 
fine  of  a  glass  of  beer  paid  to  the  party  slighted.  Drinking 
by  oneself  is  against  the  rules.  Whenever  you  drink,  you 
must  challenge  some  one  else.  This  you  do  in  the  words : 
"  Ich  komme  Ihnen  einen  halben  (or  einen  ganzeri)  vor." 
In  reply  to  this  challenge  your  friend  has  an  alternative. 
He  may  drink  with  you  at  once,  in  which  case  he  says, 
"  Icb  komme  mit"  or  simply  "  Prosit"  Or  he  may  simply 
acknowledge  the  compliment  with  a  bow ;  but  in  this 
case  he  must  return  your  challenge  within  three  min- 
utes (three  beer  minutes  =  five  ordinary  ones!)  with  the 
words  "  Icb  komme  Ihnen  nach"  In  either  case  he  must 
drink  the  quantity  (half  or  whole,  as  the  case  may  be) 
which  you  originally  proposed.  This  is  only  a  small  part 
of  the  ceremony  rigidly  observed  in  every  student  "  Kneipe." 
One  redeeming  feature  of  the  "  Kneipe  "  is  the  singing. 
This  part  of  the  entertainment  is  more  formally  organized 
than  with  us.  The  students  have  very  good  collections  of 


STUDENT  LIFE  273 

songs  in  their  "  CommershucherJ'  and  the  singing  is  gen- 
erally not  from  memory  as  with  us,  but  from  these  books, 
the  covers  of  which  are  armed  with  metal  knobs  to  lift 
them  out  of  the  beer  spilt  on  the  tables. 

It  must  not,  however,  be  supposed  that  the  duel  and  the 
"  Kneipe  "  exhaust  the  list  of  the  German  student's  amuse- 
ments. There  is  the  theatre  and  the  Kaffeeconcert,  and 
the  universal  "  Kegelbahn"  It  is  a  common  form  of  rec- 
reation for  students  to  form  a  party  and  walk  to  a  neigh- 
bouring village,  play  "  Kegel"  and  have  supper  at  the 
village  "  Gasthaus"  and  return  on  foot,  or,  if  possible  by 
train.  The  indispensable  quality  of  all  the  student's  amuse- 
ments is  "  Gemuthlichkeit " — a  word  which  reveals  its  for- 
eign flavour  by  the  difficulty  in  translating  it.  It  combines 
various  ideas,  such  as  sociableness,  comfort  and  absence  of 
fatigue.  It  generally  requires  sociability.  No  one  would 
seem  a  more  pitiable  object  to  the  German  than  the  solitary 
angler  on  a  Highland  moor.  The  German  likes  to  take 
his  pleasure  not  only  in  ease  but  in  society.  If  he  goes  up  a 
mountain,  there  must  be  a  restaurant  at  the  top  where  he  can 
meet  his  friends,  and  drink  a  glass  of  beer  and  smoke  a  cigar. 
So  important  is  this,  that  if  the  restaurant  cannot  be  taken 
to  the  scenery,  the  scenery  must  be  brought  to  the  restau- 
rant, and  this  is  actually  the  case  in  more  than  one  instance. 
I  remember  in  the  Harz  Mountains  a  celebrated  waterfall 
which  I  went  to  see.  As  I  was  sitting  with  my  glass  of 
beer  and  cigar  at  the  restaurant  below  it,  another  tourist 
got  into  conversation  with  me.  After  a  few  moments  he 
said :  "  How  fortunate  that  you  arrived  just  at  the  right 
time :  the  waterfall  is  only  turned  on  at  three !  " 

Having  practically  illustrated  the  student's  freedom  from 
supervision,  it  is  time  we  mentioned  to  what  extent  there  is 


274  GERMANY 

such  a  thing  as  discipline.  First  of  all,  no  professor  has  any- 
thing whatever  at  all  to  do  with  discipline,  unless  he  hap- 
pen to  be  the  rector  for  the  time  being,  or  a  member  of  the 
university  court.  This  latter  body,  as  we  have  already  men- 
tioned, alone  takes  cognizance  of  student's  offences.  Fur- 
ther, there  is  nothing  corresponding  to  our  proctorial  system. 
The  university  takes  no  steps  to  detect  misdemeanours.  If 
a  policeman  catches  the  student  breaking  the  law,  he  must 
hand  him  over  at  once  to  one  of  the  university  beadles. 
And  in  general  this  latter  official  is  bound  to  report  any 
flagrant  offence  which  may  come  under  his  notice.  The 
university  court  can  inflict  various  punishments.  These 
are  fine,  imprisonment  in  the  university  Career^  "  consilium 
abeundi"  or  dismissal  from  the  particular  university  to 
which  the  student  belongs,  but  with  liberty  to  enter  an- 
other ;  and,  finally,  relegation,  or  absolute  expulsion,  which 
precludes  the  student  from  entering  any  other  university  in 
Germany. 

The  advantages  of  this  laissez-faire  system  are  very  great. 
The  relation  between  professor  and  student  is  never  any- 
thing but  that  between  teacher  and  learner.  The  result  is, 
there  is  absolute  decorum  and  seriousness  during  lecture. 
The  professor  never  has  occasion  to  say  one  word  about 
behaviour.  He  treats  his  audience  as  students  anxious  for 
the  knowledge  which  he  has  to  impart,  and  they  in  their 
behaviour  justify  that  presumption. 

And  not  only  within  the  precincts  of  the  university,  but 
in  their  social  life,  the  students  of  most  universities,  such 
as  Jena,  have  been  the  scenes  of  riot ;  but  this  belonged  to 
the  period  when  students  were  ardent  politicians  and  revo- 
lutionists— a  period  which  in  .Germany  is  past,  though  it  is 
present  in  Russia. 


STUDENT  LIFE  275 

Before  I  leave  the  undergraduate,  I  will  say  a  word  or 
two  about  his  expenses.  My  rooms  (bed-room  and  sitting- 
room),  in  a  nice  old  house,  with  a  beautiful  garden,  in  the 
best  part  of  Gottingen,  cost  £4.  155  for  the  whole  semester; 
that  is,  if  we  liked  to  keep  them,  from  the  middle  of  April 
till  the  end  of  September.  Breakfast,  consisting  of  coffee, 
eggs,  and  bread  and  butter,  about  six  pence.  Dinner  at  a 
regular  student's  restaurant  (consisting  of  soup,  two  courses 
of  meat,  and  stewed  fruit),  thirteen  pence.  Supper  about 
the  same,  if  taken  at  a  restaurant,  rather  less  if  taken  at 
home.  Beyond  these  there  were  no  expenses  for  board  and 
lodging,  except  a  slight  outlay  at  the  beginning  on  china 
and  cutlery,  a  trifle  for  boot  cleaning,  and  a  small  amount 
(only  the  actual  cost  of  fuel  and  oil)  for  fire  and  light  when 
needed.  The  university  fees  are  proportionately  moderate. 
There  is  first  of  all  the  matriculation  fee,  which  is  about 
£i.  Then  each  course  of  lectures  is  paid  for  separately. 
The  charge  varies  between  £i  and  £2  for  a  single  course 
for  the  semester,  according  to  the  number  of  hours  per 
week.  It  must  be  remembered  that  everything — whether 
it  be  subscriptions,  theatres,  concerts,  or  what  not — is  on 
the  same  scale  of  rigid  economy.  In  one  town,  for  in- 
stance, where  I  stayed,  I  remember  that  the  stalls  in  the 
theatre  cost  eighteen  pence,  and  for  this  one  heard  a  con- 
stant variety  of  operas  and  plays  very  fairly  rendered.  Alto- 
gether a  student  may  live  comfortably,  not  to  say  luxuri- 
ously, and  travel  a  little  in  his  vacation,  for  ;£ioo  a  year. 

It  may  be  noticed,  in  conclusion  what  encouragement  the 
freedom  and  elasticity  of  the  German  university  system  give 
to  foreigners  in  search  of  a  higher  education.  Great  num- 
bers of  English  and  Scotch  graduates  are  to  be  found  in  the 
different  universities  of  Germany,  continuing  their  studies 


276  GERMANY 

from  the  point  at  which  our  universities  leave  them.  An 
instance  of  a  German  graduate  coming  to  Oxford  or  Cam- 
bridge to  complete  his  education  is  scarcely,  I  should  think, 
on  record.  But  the  most  important  and  constant  foreign 
element  in  the  German  universities  is  the  American.  For 
one  American  who  comes  to  an  English  university  probably 
three  hundred  go  to  Germany.  In  fact,  the  upper-class 
students  in  America  hardly  regard  their  education  as  com- 
plete till  they  have  spent  a  year  or  two  at  a  German  uni- 
versity. At  the  larger  universities,  such  as  Berlin  and 
Leipzig,  there  are  always  great  numbers  of  Americans  ; 
but  even  at  the  comparatively  small  university  of  Gottingen 
there  is  a  stable  contingent.  The  American  "  colony,"  as 
they  call  themselves  there,  have  a  regular  organization.  A 
book  is  kept,  in  which  all  new-comers  are  enrolled,  and  the 
colony  is  presided  over  by  the  American  of  longest  stand- 
ing, who  is  called  "the  Patriarch."  It  is  his  duty  to  look 
out  for  new  arrivals  from  the  States,  assist  them,  if  neces- 
sary, in  finding  lodgings,  and  introduce  them  to  the  colony. 
Every  Saturday  evening  a  "  Kneipe"  meets  in  proper  Ger- 
man student  style,  and  hospitality  is  often  extended,  as  I 
have  reason  gratefully  to  acknowledge,  to  Englishmen  and 
other  foreigners.  The  books  date  from  the  early  part  of 
this  century,  and  contain,  among  other  illustrious  names, 
that  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 


HOW  TO  BE  A  GERMAN 

G.   W.  STEEPENS 

THE  essence  of  the  German  character — it  is  always 
enlightening  to  find  a  formula,  so  long  as  you  do 
not  apply  it  to  death — is  the  weight  it  lays  on 
trifles.  That  is  the  source  alike  of  German  strength  and 
of  German  weakness.  You  see  it  at  its  best  in  the  com- 
plete and  powerful  organization,  for  example  of  the  army. 
You  see  it  on  its  weak  side  in  the  emphasis  with  which 
Germany  underlines  and  doubly  underlines  things  that  do 
not  matter.  All  things  seem  to  be  of  equal,  supreme  im- 
portance to  the  German.  He  has  no  perspective.  He 
is  always  on  the  strain,  always  doing  his  utmost.  The 
keynote  of  his  character  is  that  he  has  nothing  in 
hand. 

Take  the  smallest  item  of  his  daily  life.  You  cannot 
caricature  the  German.  Caricature  implies  going  farther 
than  the  object  caricatured  along  its  own  lines,  developing 
and  exaggerating  its  features  until  they  become  ridiculous. 
But  the  German  has  gone  to  the  very  end  already  ;  his  fea- 
tures are  already  developed  to  exaggeration.  Here  is  a 
group  of  Germans  who  have  been  out  shooting :  cocks' 
feathers  in  their  hats,  Tyrolese  suits,  bare  knees,  knitted 
gaiters,  dogs  at  their  feet — they  are  the  very  pictures  we 
have  seen  on  mugs  since  we  were  babies.  You  could  not 
caricature  them ;  they  are  caricatures  already ;  they  have 
nothing  in  reserve. 


278  GERMANY 

One  day  in  Hamburg  I  saw  a  heavy  waggon  which  the 
horses  could  hardly  pull  up  a  slippery  hill.  The  carter 
whipped  them  up ;  they  refused  to  try.  There  was  a  po- 
liceman near  by,  but  he,  of  course,  did  nothing  to  help  :  be 
was  taking  a  note.  A  crowd  collected,  and  began  to  help ; 
half-a-dozen  people  tugged  at  each  wheel,  half-a-dozen 
more  pushed  behind;  the  thing  creaked,  moved ;  the  horses 
came  up  to  the  collar  and  off  it  went.  The  people  ran 
along  by  it  in  procession,  took  off  their  hats  and  gave  three 
ringing  cheers.  And  the  carter — he  took  off  his  hat  and 
bowed,  cracked  his  whip,  and  went  off  waving  it  round  his 
head,  laughing  and  dancing  on  the  box  in  a  delirium  of 
triumph.  What  more  could  he  do  if  he  had  won  the 
Derby  ?  He  had  nothing  in  hand. 

The  Germans  lavish  so  much  of  themselves  on  the  small 
and  ordinary  things  of  life  that  they  can  have  nothing  to 
spare  for  the  greater.  If  a  steamer  goes  faster  than  another 
steamer  they  never  speak  of  it  but  as  a  "  fast-steamer" — and 
then  what  word  is  left  for  the  "  Wilhelm  der  Grosse  "  ?  The 
very  Kaiser  could  not  possibly  improve  on  his  solemnity  of 
aspect  were  it  never  so  necessary :  if  he  ever  had  a  tragic, 
an  immortal  moment,  a  new  retreat  from  Moscow,  or  a  new 
surrender  of  Sedan,  he  could  not  look  any  more  impressive 
than  he  does  when  he  is  going  out  for  a  drive.  Germany 
to-day  is  so  loaded  with  monuments,  showing  that  she  con- 
quered France  in  1870,  that  if  she  now  conquered  the  whole 
world  there  would  be  no  room  to  commemorate  the  feat. 
All  this  makes  you  ponder.  Everything  is  so  complete,  so 
mapped  out,  so  tensely  strong  every  day,  that  you  wonder 
what  would  happen  in  an  unforeseen  and  unfamiliar  crisis. 
Would  not  everything  break  down  ?  Every  moment,  over 
every  trifle,  Germany  seems  to  be  doing  every  jot  it  knows  : 


HOW  TO  BE  A  GERMAN          279 

if  it  were  called  on  to  do  more,  could  there  be  any  more 
forthcoming  ? 

The  knock-about  adventurous  race  of  Britain  has  this 
tradition,  that  when  the  moment  of  need  comes  every 
subaltern  will  command  a  regiment,  every  voter  will 
form  a  Ministry.  He  has  never  done  it  before,  he  seems 
to  have  no  particular  qualification  for  it,  but — he  does  it. 
Somehow  or  other,  against  all  the  rules,  he  pulls  it  through. 
He  has  a  reserve  of  strength — yes,  and  even  of  tact — stored 
away  somewhere,  and  at  the  supreme  moment  it  comes  into 
play.  Has  the  German  ?  For  the  affirmative  it  must  be 
said  that  the  German,  being  of  a  cautious  and  very  prac- 
tical turn,  succeeds  as  a  colonist  in  new  lands  better  than 
any  countryman,  except  the  Scotsman.  And  yet — it  may 
be  unreasonable — the  doubt  remains.  Except  in  the  army, 
the  German  has  flung  himself  headlong  into  the  details  of 
so  narrow,  so  straitly  circumscribed  a  sphere,  that  you  are 
bound  to  believe  the  initiative  must  be  in  some  degree 
starved  within  him.  He  concentrates  himself  so  thoroughly 
on  doing  what  he  is  told,  that  you  are  bound  to  wonder  how 
much  he  could  do  if  he  were  not  told. 

One  thing,  at  least,  seems  certain — it  is  the  German's 
deification  of  small  things  that  enables  him  contentedly  to 
live  under  his  present  rule.  Contrariwise,  it  is  the  emphasis 
laid  by  his  present  rule  on  trifles  that  maintains  their  sanctity 
unimpaired.  Small  things  are  so  well  organized  by  the 
police  that,  being  unable  to  do  without  these  small  things, 
he  accepts  the  police  as  the  necessary  price  to  pay.  "  But 
you  seem,  Mr.  Steevens,"  said  a  German  lady  of  cultivation 
and  intelligence,  "to  have  a  wholly  false  idea  of  our  German 
freedom.  When  I  travel  in  Russia  I  feel  lost  and  miser- 
able ;  there  is  no  official  looking  after  me  j  I  feel  that  if  I 


28o  GERMANY 

were  to  die  in  a  corner  nobody  would  know  it,  and  nobody 
would  care.  But  as  soon  as  I  cross  the  frontier  back  into 
Germany  I  feel  comfortable  and  secure.  I  know  that  there 
are  officials  looking  after  me,  whose  business  it  is  to  see 
that  I  come  to  no  harm."  That,  of  course,  is  a  point 
of  view  like  another.  If  you  accept  your  official  in  that 
spirit,  then  he  will  do  much  to  serve  you.  I  have  not 
found  German  officials  uncivil.  Quite  the  reverse ;  if 
civilly  treated  they  will  go  out  of  their  way  to  oblige  you. 
Certainly  it  is  best  to  take  off  your  hat  to  them,  and  to  the 
free  (if  snobbish)  Englishman  this  is  painful.  But  the 
Englishman  must  bear  in  mind  that  in  Germany  to  take  off 
your  hat  is  not  a  sign  of  servility  or  a  confession  of  in- 
feriority ;  it  is  the  minimum  of  courtesy  which  you  use  to 
all  people  of  all  stations.  The  German's  manners,  you 
must  also  remember,  are  like  everything  else  German — 
there  is  none  of  them  in  reserve  j  all  the  goods  are  put  into 
the  shop  window  of  outward  observance.  Now  if  you  treat 
the  official  with  the  ordinary  German  good  manners,  and 
happen  to  know  the  right  official  to  apply  to  in  each  case, 
he  will  be  kind  to  you.  As  my  friend  said,  he  is  then  a 
stand-by  and  a  comfort;  only  I  cannot  think  that  the  atti- 
tude of  leaning  on  the  official's  arm  is  conducive  to  standing 
by  yourself. 

Whether  the  German  made  Germany  or  Germany  made 
the  German,  it  would  be  unprofitable  to  inquire.  It  is  with 
them  as  with  all  peoples  and  governments;  each  people  gets 
the  government  it  needs  and  deserves,  and  one  is  constantly 
influencing  the  other.  The  essential  point  is  that  the  middle 
classes  of  Germany  are,  on  the  whole,  very  well  satisfied 
with  their  Government.  The  Government  confines  their 
activity  to  the  details  of  life,  and  in  details  they  are  very 


HOW  TO  BE  A  GERMAN          281 

much  interested  and  quite  happy.  All  classes  have  an  in- 
tense love  of  pleasure.  They  do  not  generally  get  the 
credit  of  this  among  those  who  have  not  watched  them  j 
but  though  they  take  their  pleasures  more  quietly  than  the 
French  or  Italians,  or  even  the  Austrians,  they  take  them 
with  full  enjoyment.  Beer-drinking,  smoking,  talking,  and 
listening  to  the  band,  will  keep  them  quiet  for  years.  Their 
love  of  art — the  theatre,  the  opera,  pictures — is  perhaps  well 
educated  rather  than  intellectual;  but  this  also  is  a  far 
greater  factor  in  their  lives  than  it  is  in  ours.  All  this 
keeps  them  contented.  The  most  irritating  rule  hardly 
irritates  them ;  the  most  barbarous  would  hardly  drive  them 
to  revolution. 

To  sum  it  all  up,  the  German  is  the  soul  of  economy. 
He  makes  the  most  of  everything,  himself  included.  In 
affairs  of  money,  he  is  the  most  sparing  of  men — sparing  as 
only  he  can  be  whose  currency  is  measured  in  a  coin  of 
which  eight  go  to  an  English  penny.  It  is  enough  to  say 
he  always  carries  his  nickels — worth  ^d.  and  ij^d. — in  a 
purse.  Even  when  he  is  dissipated  he  proceeds  warily  and 
with  system,  so  as  to  get  the  last  possible  ounce  of  dissipa- 
tion for  his  five-shilling  piece.  You  seldom  hear  of  a  Ger- 
man who  went  the  pace  in  youth  and  then  settled  down ; 
the  young  man  who  has  gone  the  pace  gets  so  utterly  lost, 
so  cut  off  from  all  national  experience  and  tradition,  so  deep 
out  of  his  depth,  that  he  often  finishes  up  by  fraud  and 
prison,  or  suicide.  It  must  be  one  thing  or  the  other  for 
the  German — level-headed  economy  or  sheer  reckless  ruin. 
And  as  he  makes  the  most  of  his  money,  so  he  makes  the 
most  of  his  dignity,  of  his  adjectives,  of  his  shooting-suit, 
of  his  satisfaction  when  his  horses  decide  to  pull  him  up 
hill,  of  his  victories,  of  his  Kaisership.  Quietly,  method- 


282  GERMANY 

ically,  surely,  the  German  is  always  making  the  most  of 
small  things.  He  never  draws  back  for  a  great  effort ;  he 
is  making  small  efforts  continually.  Sometimes  ridiculous, 
usually  most  effective,  always  well  satisfied  with  himself,  he 
lives  with  his  second-best  foot  foremost. 


WHAT  A  GERMAN  MAY  NOT  DO 

G.    W.  STEEPENS 


THE  light  on  German  character  and  German  gov- 
ernment shed  by  the  "  Address-Book,  Town  and 
Business  Handbook  "  of  Hanover  is  certainly  a 
dry  one.  But  for  the  student  with  a  few  days  to  spare  it 
can  be  confidently  recommended  as  a  source  of  instruction, 
and  even,  here  and  there,  of  amusement.  Its  priceless 
second  part  begins  with  the  latitude  and  longitude  of  the 
four  principal  churches  in  the  town,  and  winds  up  with 
the  hours  at  which  every  doctor  in  the  place  may  be  found 
at  home.  Within  these  limits  you  can  get  all  the  con- 
ceivable statistics  about  Hanover,  an  outline  of  the  munic- 
ipal constitution,  particulars  of  all  the  clubs,  churches, 
poor-law  boards,  sanitary  arrangements,  educational  ar- 
rangements, newspapers,  and  museums,  besides  instructions 
for  railway  travelling,  with  the  tariff  for  tipping  porters, 
practical  hints  as  to  posting  a  registered  letter,  directions 
for  amusing  yourself,  remarks  on  what  may  and  may  not  be 
done  on  Sunday,  particulars  as  to  the  price  of  coke,  and 
the  hours  at  which  the  street  lamps  are  extinguished,  and  a 
list  of  the  names  and  numbers  of  porters,  with  the  place 
where  each  stands.  In  a  word,  it  is  a  most  masterly  little 
monograph,  and  it  goes  without  saying  that  it  could  exist 
nowhere  but  in  Germany. 

If  you  want  to  read  it  all  you  can  get  it  for  eight  shill- 
ings, and  with  industry  and  concentration  you  will  get  one 


284  GERMANY 

year's  issue  finished  before  the  publication  of  the  next.  It 
is  proposed,  therefore,  in  this  chapter  to  deal  only  with 
Part  II.,  chapter  viii.,  pages  83—104;  "  Polizei-Verwaltung 
und  polizeiliche  Einrichtungen"  which,  in  our  terser  Eng- 
lish, may  be  translated  "  Police."  A  brief  abstract  will 
give  a  clear  and  certainly  an  officially  accurate  idea  of  what 
the  German  may  not  do ;  after  which,  by  simple  subtrac- 
tion, it  is  easy  to  discover  what,  if  anything,  he  may  do. 

Sub-section  I  is  devoted  to  "  building-police."  In  Ger- 
many there  seem  to  be  many  varieties  of  police.  With  us 
police  is  just  police,  and  there  you  are ;  in  Germany  it  may 
be  building-police,  street-police,  five  kinds  of  fire-police, 
charged  respectively  with  preventing,  announcing,  and  put- 
ting out  fires,  with  the  regulation  of  explosives,  and  with 
sweeping  chimneys.  Then  there  is  business-police,  press- 
police,  and  sub-sectional-police  dealing  with  lodgings,  par- 
ticulars of  residence  of  inhabitants,  passports,  domestic 
servants,  lost  property,  factories,  clubs,  public  meetings, 
cruelty  to  animals,  the  keeping  of  large  dogs,  and  skating. 
If  a  sense  of  multiform  and  strenuous  activity  can  bring 
happiness,  then  in  a  future  life  the  good  will  be  German 
policemen.  Return,  though,  to  the  building-police.  For 
every  building,  erection  round  a  building,  addition  to  a 
building,  or  alteration  of  a  building,  without  respect  to  its 
aim,  position,  or  size,  and  for  all  other  buildings,  fixed  or 
movable,  which  lie  on  public  streets,  ways,  or  places,  or  are 
visible  therefrom,  you  must  get  preliminary  permission  from 
the  police.  Along  with  your  application  you  must  send  a 
complete  plan  of  the  proposed  work,  and  the  name  of  the 
builder  who  is  responsible  for  it.  The  police  permission 
loses  its  validity  if  the  work  is  not  begun  within  a  year. 
Pillars,  supports,  and  so  on  must  be  tested  with  double  the 


WHAT  A  GERMAN  MAY  NOT  DO    285 

weight  they  are  to  bear,  and  the  police  must  be  satisfied 
of  their  successful  trial.  If  anything  is  built  contrary  to 
regulations  it  has  to  be  pulled  down  and  built  over  again. 
When  the  building  is  finished  in  its  raw  state  it  must  get  a 
certificate  from  the  police  before  it  can  begin  to  be  deco- 
rated. The  extent  to  which  buildings  may  project  into  the 
street  is  rigidly  prescribed.  Steps  must  not  protrude  beyond 
the  skirting, — that  is,  not  more  than  i— looth  of  the  street's 
width,  and  in  no  case  more  than  twenty  centimetres.  Sim- 
ilarly, boot-scrapers.  Steps  leading  down  from  the  street 
may  only  begin  thirty  centimeters  below  the  skirting ;  they 
must  be  protected  with  a  lattice  at  least  a  metre  high,  with 
interstices  of  not  more  than  twelve  centimetres  diameter. 
Twelve  centimetres  is  under  five  inches,  so  that  even  a  thin 
German  runs  little  danger  of  slipping  through.  Window- 
sills  less  than  2.4  metres — say  seven  feet — above  the  pave- 
ment may  project  no  farther  than  the  skirting ;  balconies 
are  not  allowed  in  streets  less  than  ten  metres  wide,  and 
must  be  at  least  three  and  a-half  metres  above  the  pave- 
ment j  water-pipes  may  only  go  fifteen  centimetres  into  the 
street,  and  you  cannot  have  a  trap  in  the  pavement  without 
the  written  permission  of  the  police.  Finally,  the  police 
can  forbid  any  building  which  in  its  opinion  is  a  disfigure- 
ment to  the  street. 

There  are  several  hundred  other  regulations,  but  these 
are  fair  specimens.  It  will  be  seen  that  every  single  one 
has  a  definite  and  desirable  public  end  in  view,  and  tends 
towards  personal  safety,  health,  and  correct  appreciation  of 
beauty  on  the  part  of  the  German.  The  police  takes 
care  that  he  does  not  knock  his  head  ;  it  takes  care  that 
he  only  sees  buildings  which  it  is  good  for  him  to  see. 

Passing  to  the  street-police  regulations,  they  open  with 


286  GERMANY 

the  ordinance  that  the  German  who  lives  on  the  ground- 
floor  shall  have  thoroughly  cleansed  his  frontage  of  pave- 
ment by  seven  in  the  morning,  from  April  i  to  September 
30,  and  by  eight  from  October  i  to  March  31.  If  it  gets 
dirty  again  in  the  course  of  the  day  the  police  can  call 
upon  him  to  clean  it  again.  It  might  be  that  there  is  no- 
body living  on  the  ground-floor,  but  the  police  is  equal  to 
that ;  then  the  person  next  above  must  clean  it.  In  winter 
the  inhabitant  must  keep  it  clear  of  ice  and  snow,  and  the 
way  of  doing  this  is  prescribed  ;  but  to  injure  the  pave- 
ment in  the  process  is  severely  forbidden  (streng  verboteti). 
You  must  put  your  dust  and  rubbish  out  on  the  pavement, 
but  not  till  you  hear  the  bell  of  the  dust-cart ;  as  soon  as 
it  is  emptied  you  must  take  it  in  again.  If  anybody  leaves 
any  forbidden  article  on  your  piece  of  pavement  you  must 
clear  it  away.  You  must  not  hang  beds  or  clothes  out  of 
window  so  that  they  can  be  seen  from  the  street.  You 
must  not  feed  horses  in  streets  where  there  is  not  room  for 
two  vehicles  to  pass,  and  in  others  only  with  the  consent 
of  the  occupier  opposite  whose  piece  of  pavement  you  are ; 
you  must  watch  the  horse,  and  undo  the  traces  while  he 
is  eating,  and  when  he  is  done  the  occupier  must  clear  up 
the  spilt  chaff.  If  you  accidentally  break  a  bottle  or  jug 
in  the  street  you  must  carefully  gather  up  the  pieces  and 
take  them  away.  If  you  stand  on  the  pavement  you  must 
leave  room  for  other  people  to  pass.  After  this  it  is  rather 
an  anticlimax  to  learn  that  you  must  not  discharge  fire- 
arms in  the  street,  nor  shoot  with  crossbows  and  blow- 
pipes. If  children  make  a  noise  in  the  street  their  parents 
can  be  punished,  and  "  rambling  about  in  droves  "  is  for- 
bidden after  dark.  Dogs  that  annoy  people  by  barking  are 
forbidden,  especially  after  ten  j  if  you  take  your  dog  out 


WHAT  A  GERMAN  MAY  NOT  DO    287 

then  the  nearest  policeman  bears  down  on  you  and  wakes 
the  street  with  yells  of  "  That  dog — must — not  bark  !  " 

Again  all  very  clean,  and  right,  and  proper,  and  leaving 
the  German  no  loophole  for  naughtiness.  The  rest  of  the 
sub-sections  may  be  passed  over  rapidly.  Kitchen  chim- 
neys must  be  swept  at  least  three  times  a-year,  and,  on  the 
requisition  of  the  police,  as  often  as  six  times.  In  Han- 
over the  chimney-sweep  is  a  public  official,  and  his  fee  is 
regulated  by  the  police  law.  If  you  move  into  the  district, 
you  must  produce  you  police  permission  to  come  from  your 
last  abode ;  if  you  move  out,  you  must  produce  you  tax- 
receipt,  and  announce  your  future  abode  ;  if  you  move  in- 
side the  district,  you  must  announce  to  the  police  that  you 
leave  one  dwelling  and  take  up  another.  Then  follow 
regulations  telling  you  on  what  occasions  you  may  or  may 
not  dismiss  a  servant,  and  what  breakages  you  can  make 
her  pay  for.  The  chapter  on  waitresses  is  of  special  in- 
terest. Nobody  may  be  a  waitress  without  giving  evidence 
of  her  name,  age,  birthplace,  and  freedom  from  crime  and 
immorality  during  three  years.  Her  employer  must  keep 
all  this  written  down  in  a  book,  and  produce  it  when  the 
police  ask  for  it.  She  must  not  live  with  her  employer, 
nor  in  the  same  house  ;  she  must  leave  the  place  at  10  P.  M. 
and  not  re-enter  it  till  seven  next  morning.  Waitresses 
must  not  sit  or  stand  about  with  customers.  They  are  for- 
bidden to  wear  fancy  costumes,  and  they  may  only  wear 
national  costumes  upon  proving  to  the  satisfaction  of  the 
police  that  they  really  belong  to  the  nationality  in  ques- 
tion. Otherwise  their  dress  must  not  be  open  at  the  neck, 
and  must  come  down  at  least  to  the  ankle. 

The  police  regulations  about  public  meetings  and  the 
press  are  a  little  dull  after  this,  and  are  better  known  in 


288  GERMANY 

England.  You  must  not  hold  a  public  meeting  without 
giving  twenty-four  hours'  clear  notice  to  the  police,  and 
when  you  print  anything  you  must  dash  off  at  once  with  a 
copy  for  the  approval  of  the  police.  Finally,  bulldogs  and 
all  larger  dogs,  as  short  or  long-haired  St.  Bernards,  must 
be  muzzled  and  lead  by  a  leash  not  more  than  sixteen 
inches  long,  and  that  not  on  the  pavement  but  in  the 
street.  And  in  winter  you  may  skate  only  between  the 
red  flags,  and  unless  the  green  flag  is  up  you  may  not 
skate  at  all. 

When  I  had  read  all  this  I  was  taken  with  a  fierce 
longing  to  go  out  and  commit  a  crime.  Few  of  the 
above  cost  more  than  95.;  some  only  35.,  some  only  is. 
I  wanted  to  do  something  untidy,  to  spoil  something, 
to  block  the  way,  to  break  a  bottle  and  only  pick  the 
pieces  up  carelessly,  to  hold  an  open-air  meeting,  to  fire  a 
revolver  at  a  policeman,  to  wear  a  skirt  above  the  ankle — 
anything,  so  long  as  it  was  a  crime.  In  the  course  of 
twenty  minutes'  walk  in  a  public  pleasure  place  I  counted 
fifty  boards  all  forbidding  something  or  other ;  and  then  I 
deliberately  and  openly  walked  across  the  grass.  I  was  not 
arrested  !  That  particular  board  was  momentarily  without 
its  attendant  policeman.  The  truth  is  that  all  the  regula- 
tions cannot  be  always  enforced — never  can  be  till  all  the 
inhabitants  are  policemen  but  one. 

But  would  you  like  to  be  a  German  ? 


PAINTING 

MRS.  CHARLES  H EATON 

THE  School  of  Bohemia  is  about  the  earliest  school 
of  painting  that  arose  in  Germany.  It  dates  from 
the  beginning  of  the  Fourteenth  Century,  but 
chiefly  flourished  in  the  time  of  the  Emperor  Charles  IV. 
(1348-1378),  who  employed  several  native  artists  in  the 
decoration  of  his  castle  and  church  at  Karlstein,  near 
Prague. 

The  school  of  Nurnberg,  during  the  early  Gothic  period, 
was  a  school  of  sculpture  rather  than  of  painting.  We 
find,  however,  a  few  early  paintings  at  Nurnberg,  such  as 
the  celebrated  Imhof  altarpiece,  executed  about  1418-1422, 
and  the  beautiful  Virgin  with  Cherubs  in  the  Lorenz 
Kirche,  that  prove  that  the  Nurnberg  masters  even  in 
painting,  were  not  behind  the  other  early  schools  of  Ger- 
many in  artistic  development. 

In  Swabia,  also,  German  Art  appears  to  have  developed 
at  an  early  date ;  but  here,  as  at  Nurnberg,  it  was  sculpture 
that  was  principally  practiced. 

In  the  more  celebrated  and  better  School  of  Cologne,  on 
the  other  hand,  painting,  although  undoubtedly  preceded 
by  architecture  and  sculpture,  rose  at  a  very  early  date  to 
separate  importance.  As  early  as  the  beginning  of  the 
Thirteenth  Century,  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach,  in  his 
famous  romance  of  Parsifal,  in  describing  the  beauty  of  his 
knight,  declares  that  — 


290  GERMANY 

"  From  Kdln  nor  from  Maastricht 
No  limner  could  cxcell  him," 

proving  that  even  at  that  date  Cologne  was  celebrated  for 
its  limners. 

The  first  of  the  "  limners  "  of  Cologne,  of  whom  we 
gain  any  real  sight,  is  that  patriarch  of  German  Art,  Meister 
Wilhelm  of  Cologne  (painting  in  the  latter  half  of  the 
Fourteenth  Century).  Unfortunately  but  few  of  his  pro- 
ductions survive,  or  at  least  can  be  identified.  A  Madonna 
and  Child  in  the  Wallraf  Museum  at  Cologne  is  still  as- 
cribed to  him.  But  the  fame  of  Meister  Wilhelm  has  of 
late  years  paled  before  the  superior  merits  of  another  master 
of  the  Cologne  School,  Meister  Stephan,  or  Stephan 
Lochner,  who  was,  perhaps,  one  of  Wilhelm's  pupils  and 
flourished  in  the  first  half  of  the  Fifteenth  Century.  The 
name  of  Meister  Stephan  was  first  made  known  to  critics 
by  an  entry  in  the  'Journal  of  Albrecbt  Durer,  which  states: 
"  Item.  I  have  paid  two  silver  pennies  to  have  the  picture 
opened  which  Meister  Stephan  painted  at  Cologne."  This 
picture  was  the  great  "  Dom-bild"  as  it  is  called,  an  altar- 
piece  still  preserved  in  the  Cathedral  of  Cologne,  which, 
until  this  entry  was  noticed,  had  always  been  attributed  to 
Meister  Wilhelm.  The  fame  of  being  the  painter  of 
such  a  picture  as  the  Dom-bild,  the  crowning  work  of  the 
Cologne  School,  is  truly  worth  contending  for,  it  being  one 
of  the  noblest  and  most  beautiful  works  of  early  Christian 
Art. 

Another  highly-finished  and  beautifully  conceived  work 
of  the  early  Cologne  school  is  the  Madonna  in  the  Rose 
Arbour,  Madonna  in  der  Rosenlaube  now  in  the  Wallraf 
Museum  in  Cologne.  There  are  many  other  curious  works 
of  the  same  school  in  the  Wallraf  collection  which  is 


ALBRECHT  DURER'S  HOUSE,  NUREMBERG 


PAINTING  291 

peculiarly  rich  in  works  of  early  German  Art.  There  are 
also  many  scattered  in  old  German  churches,  but  space 
will  not  permit  of  any  more  being  mentioned  here,  except 
an  altarpiece  at  Jiefenbronn  in  Swabia,  painted  in  1431  by 
Lucas  Moser,  which  displays  a  national  tendency  united 
with  the  ecclesiastical  forms  of  previous  years.  Before  the 
end  of  the  Fifteenth  Century  the  influence  of  the  Flemish 
School  was  powerfully  exerted  over  the  masters  of  Cologne. 
Their  spiritual  idealism  gave  way  before  the  noble  realism 
and  better  technical  methods  of  the  Van  Eycks,  and  most 
of  the  German  painters  of  this  time  belong  to  the  school 
of  Roger  van  der  Weyden  rather  than  to  that  of  Meister 
Stephan.  The  influence  of  Flemish  realism  is  especially 
apparent  in  the  works  of  a  German  master  who  was  for- 
merly, but  erroneously,  called  Israel  Van  Meckenen,  but 
who  is  now  usually  styled  after  his  principal  work,  The 
Master  of  the  Lyversberg  Passion  (about  1463-1480).  The 
Lyversberg  Passion 1  is  in  eight  compartments,  representing 
the  scenes  of  the  Passion  of  Christ. 

Another  anonymous  painter  of  this  time  is  The  Master 
of  the  Death  of  the  Virgin.  He  is  unfortunately  but  little 
known,  and  consequently  but  little  spoken  of,  even  by 
German  critics ;  but  the  one  certain  work  by  which  he  is 
known,  the  Death  of  the  Virgin,  and  its  side  wings  is  a 
painting  worthy  of  being  classed  with  many  of  the  most 
extolled  works  of  the  School  of  Bruges.  There  are  two 
repetitions  of  this  work,  one  in  the  Pinakothek  in  Munich, 
and  the  other,  slightly  varied,  in  the  Cologne  Museum. 

Far  less  Flemish  in  style  is  a  Westphalian  painter  who 
executed  some  works  in  the  Benedictine  Abbey  of  Liesborn 

1  So  called  because  it  was  formerly  in  the  possession  of  Herr  Lyvers- 
berg. It  became  the  property  of  the  Cologne  Museum  in  1864. 


292  GERMANY 

about  the  year  1465,  and  who  from  these  has  received  the 
designation  of  the  Meister  von  Liesborn. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  majesty  and  sweetness 
of  Meister  Stephan  or  the  powerful  realism  of  the  master  of 
the  Death  of  the  Virgin,  was  reached  by  all,  or  even  many, 
of  the  German  masters  of  this  time.  A  large  proportion  of 
them  continued,  even  after  the  revival  that  art  had  ex- 
perienced in  Italy  and  the  Netherlands,  to  work  on  the  old 
Byzantine  trammels ;  and,  indeed,  we  find,  even  in  the 
Sixteenth  Century,  after  the  free  schools  of  Upper  Ger- 
many had  attained  to  a  noble  national  development,  that 
the  Byzantine  type  was,  in  many  instances,  still  perpetu- 
ated in  the  Lower  Rhine  Schools. 

Of  what  may  appropriately  be  called  the  Reformation 
School  of  Germany,  Albrecht  Diirer  and  Hans  Holbein 
the  Younger  were  the  two  chief  masters ;  but  before  their 
time,  before  even  the  time  of  Luther,  we  find  an  artist  who 
in  no  way  swerved  from  his  obedience  to  Rome,  but  in 
whose  works,  nevertheless,  we  first  become  dimly  aware 
of  the  new  thoughts  and  ideas  which  took  distinct  shape  in 
the  art  of  his  successors. 

This  artist  was  Martin  Schongauer,  or  Schon,  so  called 
on  account  of  the  beauty,  not  of  his  person,  but  of  his  art. 
His  paintings,  unfortunately,  are  extremely  rare,  and  such 
as  are  certainly  known  to  be  by  him  are  mostly  at  Colmar, 
where  he  appears  to  have  long  resided  and  to  have  formed 
a  large  school. 

A  Virgin  and  Child,  which  forms  the  altarpiece  in  the 
church  of  S.  Martin,  at  Colmar,  is  his  most  important 
painting. 

But  what  more  especially  places  Martin  Schon  forward 
as  the  predecessor  of  Diirer  and  the  founder  of  the  Refor- 


PAINTING  293 

mation  School  of  German  Art,  is  the  weird,  or  as  writers 
on  art  usually  call  it,  fantastic  spirit,  that  occasionally  breaks 
forth  in  his  works.  Even  in  the  early  religious  times,  when 
the  obedient  artist  strove  faithfully  to  express  the  teachings 
of  the  Church  of  Rome,  this  spirit,  which  we  fail  to  find  in 
Italian  or  even  in  Flemish  Art,  is  occasionally  visible  in 
the  works  of  the  German  artist.  In  early  German  manu- 
scripts, for  instance,  often  in  the  midst  of  Byzantine 
Madonnas  and  ascetic  saints,  we  come  suddenly  across  some 
fantastic  monster,  whose  features  bear  a  much  stronger  re- 
semblance to  the  creatures  met  with  in  the  eddas  and  sagas 
of  the  North  than  to  the  orthodox  devils  of  Christian 
legend. 

It  was,  perhaps,  a  lingering  remembrance  and  affection 
for  the  old  Northern  mythology,  with  its  ice-giants,  its 
world-encircling  serpent  and  its  poetical  impersonations  of 
the  powers  of  nature,  that  gave  birth  to  this  strange  element 
in  German  Art. 

A  most  striking  instance  of  the  fantastic  treatment  of  a 
legendary  subject  may  be  found  in  Martin  Schon's  cele- 
brated print  of  S.  Anthony  tormented  by  demons.  This, 
it  is  said,  so  drew  the  admiration  of  Michael  Angelo  at  the 
beginning  of  his  career  that  he  copied  it  in  oils,  and  truly  it 
is  a  most  wonderful  work. 

Several  other  fantastic  subjects  have  been  treated  by 
Martin  Schon  with  good  effect,  and  we  have  also  several 
engravings  from  scenes  of  common  life,  genre  pictures 
they  may  almost  be  called,  which  betray  a  slight  sense  of 
humour,  another  element  hitherto  unknown  in  German 
Art ;  but  for  the  most  part  he  adhered  to  religious  subjects, 
treating  them  in  a  thoroughly  German  manner. 

His   engravings  were  widely  known    and   esteemed    in 


294  GERMANY 

Italy  even  in  his  own  day.  He  was  called  by  the  Italians 
II  Bel  Martino  and  by  Vasari  Martin  1'  Ollanda.  He  ap- 
pears to  have  been  a  friend  of  Perugino's,  and  to  have 
exchanged  drawings  with  him  as  Albrecht  Diirer  did  after- 
wards with  Raphael. 

Bartolomaus  Zeitblom  (1484—1517)  belongs,  like  Martin 
Schongauer,  to  the  Swabian  School.  He  did  not  attain  to 
the  same  free  artistic  development  as  Martin  Schon,  but  his 
paintings  have  great  spiritual  beauty  and  tenderness  of 
sentiment.  His  colour  also  is  pure  and  soft,  more  like 
fresco  than  oil  painting.  Two  paintings  by  him,  S.  George 
holding  the  white  banner  of  Holiness  and  S.  Anthony  with 
the  staff,  are  in  a  cabinet  of  the  Pinakothek,  and  there  is  a 
Veronica  in  the  Berlin  Gallery,  but  most  of  his  works  are 
in  the  Gallery  at  Stuttgart,  though  some  are  scattered  in  the 
churches  of  Swabia.  He  never,  like  Schon,  indulged  in  a 
fantastic  imagination,  but  was  purely  a  religious  painter  with 
no  sympathy  for  the  Reformation  movement. 

Martin  Schaffher  (living  1499-1535),  was  a  master  of 
the  same  school  as  Zeitblom,  but  somewhat  later  in  date. 
There  are  six  paintings  by  Schaffher  at  Munich,  all  of  them 
excellent  works,  but  falling  far  below  the  standard  of  the 
great  age  of  German  Art  in  which  he  lived. 

The  Niirnberg,  or  to  speak  more  widely,  the  Franconian 
School  of  this  time,  as  represented  by  Michael  Wohlge- 
muth  (1434-1519)  had  not  even  yet  attained  to  the  develop- 
ment in  painting  that  it  had  reached  in  plastic  art.  The 
paintings  that  pass  with  Wohlgemuth's  name  are  widely  un- 
equal in  merit,  some  being  wretched  daubs,  and  others  show- 
ing true  dignity  of  thought  united  with  much  tenderness 
of  feeling.  Unfortunately  he  allowed  his  school  to  de- 
generate into  a  huge  manufactory  of  altarpieces,  in  which 


PAINTING  295 

not  only  paintings  were  executed,  but  likewise  many  of  the 
remarkable  wooden  bas-reliefs,  for  which  the  Nurnberg 
School  was  famous,  were  coloured.  The  painting  of  these 
wooden  carvings  was  necessarily  left  to  workmen  rather 
than  to  artists,  indeed,  with  the  exception  of  Albrecht 
Diirer,  no  artist  of  any  note  is  known  to  have  issued  from 
Wohlgemuth's  School. 

Amongst  Wohlgemuth's  most  important  and  best  au- 
thenticated works  is  a  large  altarpiece  in  numerous  com- 
partments, representing  the  Life  and  Sufferings  of  Christ, 
in  the  Marien  Kirche  at  Zwickau.  We  also  find  paintings 
by  him  in  different  churches  in  Nurnberg  ;  four  wings  of 
an  altarpiece  in  the  Moritz-Kapelle  representing  four  female 
saints  of  great  dignity  and  sweetness,  and  a  great  altarpiece, 
broken  into  parts,  setting  forth  the  various  scenes  of  the 
Passion,  now  in  the  Pinakothek  at  Munich. 

"  It  was  a  fatal  destiny  for  the  development  of  German 
Art,"  says  Liibke,  after  greatly  depreciating  Wohlgemuth 
and  his  school,  "  that  from  this  very  teacher  and  this  very 
school  that  artist  was  to  proceed,  who,  in  depth  of  genius, 
in  creative  richness  of  fancy,  in  extensive  power  of  thought, 
and  in  moral  energy  and  earnest  striving  must  be  called  the 
first  of  all  German  masters.  Albrecht  Diirer,  as  regards 
artistic  gifts,  need  fear  no  comparison  with  any  master  in 
the  world,  not  even  with  Raphael  and  Michael  Angelo." 

He  is,  in  truth,  pre-eminently  the  representative  artist 
of  the  Fatherland. 

Albrecht  Diirer  (born  at  Nurnberg,  1471,  died  1528)  was 
the  son  of  a  working  goldsmith,  and  himself  worked,  for 
some  time,  at  his  father's  trade;  but  "  his  inclination  carry- 
ing him  more  towards  painting  than  to  goldsmith's  work," 
his  father  bound  him  apprentice  to  Michael  Wohlgemuth, 


296  GERMANY 

with  whom  he  served  for  three  years.  To  these  student 
years  (Lehrjahre)  succeeded  four  years  of  travel  (Wander- 
jahre),  of  which,  unfortunately  we  have  no  record.  On  his 
return  he  settled  in  his  native  town  as  a  painter,  and  married 
Agnes  Frey,  with  whom  it  is  supposed  he  lived  very  un- 
happily. 

In  1505,  Durer  undertook  a  journey  on  horseback  to  the 
North  of  Italy,  and  was  kindly  received  by  the  painters  of 
Venice.  Yet  at  the  end  of  1506  he  returned  to  Niirnberg, 
refusing  an  offer  of  200  ducats  a  year  that  had  been  made 
him  by  the  Venetian  government  if  he  would  settle  at 
Venice. 

Whilst  at  Venice  he  executed  a  great  altarpiece  for  the 
guild  of  German  merchants,  which,  he  tells  us,  effectually 
silenced  the  jealous  assertion  of  the  Venetians,  that  "  al- 
though he  was  a  good  engraver  he  did  not  know  how  to 
colour."  This  painting — The  Feast  of  the  Rose-garlands — 
is  now  preserved  in  the  monastery  of  Strahof  near  Prague. 

To  the  period  immediately  following  his  return  from 
Venice  belong  some  of  the  finest  and  most  original  of  his 
works.  In  1511,  he  followed  up  the  success  of  his 
Apocalypse  series  by  another  magnificent  set  of  large  cuts 
known  as  the  Great  Passion ;  a  set  of  thirty-seven  smaller 
ones,  called  the  Little  Passion,  and  the  series  of  the  Life  of 
the  Virgin.  To  the  same  fertile  year  belongs  also  the  great 
painting  of  the  Adoration  of  the  Trinity,  now  in  the  Belve- 
dere at  Vienna,  which  is  usually  considered  to  be  his  finest 
painted  work. 

Another  of  his  greatest  religious  paintings  represented  the 
Coronation  of  the  Virgin.  It  was  painted  for  the  Frankfort 
merchant  Jacob  Heller,  and  several  of  Durer's  letters  re- 
specting it  are  preserved ;  but  unfortunately  the  picture  itself 


PAINTING  297 

perished  by  fire  in  1674.  An  excellent  copy  of  it,  however, 
still  hangs  in  the  old  Town  Gallery  at  Frankfort.  It  must 
have  been  a  grand  work.  But  the  masterpiece  of  Durer's 
art  is  undoubtedly  found  in  the  Four  Apostles  of  the  Pinako- 
thek  at  Munich. 

But  it  is  less  by  his  paintings  than  by  his  engraved  works 
that  Durer  is  known  to  the  world.  His  paintings,  even  if 
we  reckon  all  that  are  attributed  to  him,  are  but  few  and 
scattered,  and  none  of  them,  except  perhaps  the  Apostles,  are 
equal  in  dignity  of  form  or  harmony  of  colour  to  the  works 
of  the  great  Italians  of  his  time,  but  his  engravings  are  fan- 
tastic poems  of  which  we  never  grow  weary,  for  there  is  a 
sense  of  mystery  in  them  that  exerts  a  powerful  fascination 
over  the  mind.  Every  one  knows  the  celebrated  print  of 
The  Knight,  Death  and  the  Devil :  each  time  we  see  it,  we 
regard  it  with  fresh  interest,  and,  although  we  may  not  be 
poets  like  Fouque,  who  founded  upon  it  his  wild  and  roman- 
tic tale  of  Sintram,  yet  we  cannot  help  constructing  some 
theory  to  explain  its  strange  charm.  To  how  many  theories, 
likewise,  has  that  weird  conception  called  Melancholia  given 
rise  ?  That  grand  winged  woman,  sitting  brooding  in  dark- 
ness of  mind  over  the  hidden  mysteries  of  nature,  while  the 
insufficient  instruments  of  human  science  lie  scattered 
around — symbols  of  man's  futile  endeavours  to  reach 
heavenly  wisdom.  In  the  Coat  of  Arms  with  the  Death's 
Head,  also,  a  less  known  engraving,  and  many  other  of  his 
prints,  the  same  sense  of  mystery  prevails. 

The  portraits  he  has  left  of  himself,  more  especially  the 
well-known  one  of  the  Munich  Gallery  show  us  a  noble, 
thoughtful  countenance,  with  large  melancholy  eyes,  far- 
seeing,  and  yet  full  of  human  sympathy. 

Durer  had  a  considerable  number  of  pupils  and  follow- 


298  GERMANY 

ers,  but  most  of  them  are  better  known  as  engravers  than 
as  painters.  These  are  called  the  "  Little  Masters  "  or 
"the  Little  Masters  of  Nurnberg,"  on  account  of  the 
small  size  of  their  prints,  few  of  which  measure  more  than 
three  or  four  inches  across,  some  being  much  smaller. 

Next  to  the  grey  old  town  of  Nurnberg  we  find  the 
equally  ancient  city  of  Augsburg  a  central  point  of  German 
Art  in  the  Sixteenth  Century.  Here,  for  two  or  three 
generations,  the  families  of  Burgkmair  and  Holbein  put 
forth  their  artistic  skill,  until  their  efforts  culminated  in  the 
works  of  Hans  Holbein  the  younger,  as  he  is  called  to  dis- 
tinguish him  from  his  father,  a  master  who  stands  next  to 
Durer  in  the  annals  of  German  Art. 

Hans  Holbein,  the  younger  and  greater  painter  of  the 
name,  was  born  at  Augsburg  in  1497.  His  father  (1464- 
1524),  was  an  artist  of  considerable  merit,  by  whom  there 
are  a  number  of  paintings  in  the  Munich  Gallery,  as  well 
as  several  at  Augsburg. 

In  1515,  he  left  Augsburg  and  set  up  for  himself  at 
Basel,  where  he  achieved  so  great  a  reputation,  that  he  was 
employed  by  the  town  council  in  1521—2210  paint  in  fresco 
the  council-chamber  of  the  new  Rathhaus.  But  by  far  the 
greatest  work  of  Holbein's  early,  or  Basel,  period  is  the  cele- 
brated votive  picture  known  as  the  Meier  Madonna,  exe- 
cuted for  the  Burgomaster  Jacob  Meier  of  Basel,  and  rep- 
resenting him  and  his  family  kneeling  before  the  Virgin. 
Two  repetitions  of  it  are  known  to  exist,  one  in  the  Royal 
Palace  at  Darmstadt,  and  the  other  the  well-known  Hol- 
bein Madonna  of  the  Dresden  Gallery. 

In  1526,  Holbein,  either  because  he  failed  in  obtaining  a 
sufficient  reward  for  his  labours  in  Basel,  or  for  some  other 
cause  quitted  that  city  and  came  over  to  England.  In  1528 


PAINTING  299 

he  returned  to  Basel,  in  order,  it  would  appear,  to  finish  his 
paintings  in  the  Rathbaus  (1530),  but  in  1532  he  was  back 
again  in  England.  England,  indeed,  at  that  time,  offered 
a  far  wider  and  richer  field  for  his  art  than  the  impoverished 
cities  of  Germany.  The  Court  of  Henry  VIII.  was  then 
about  the  most  magnificent  in  Europe,  and  as  there  were  no 
English  painters  attached  to  it,  it  is  not  strange  to  find  that 
Holbein  was  soon  installed  as  court  painter,  or  "  servant  of 
the  King's  majesty,"  with  a  salary  of  thirty  pounds  a  year, 
besides  rooms  in  the  palace. 

It  is  impossible  to  enumerate  the  numerous  portraits  that 
Holbein  executed  in  England.  He  confined  himself  in- 
deed, almost  entirely  to  portraiture  during  his  English  time, 
but  he  threw  into  his  portraits  a  grandeur  of  thought  and  a 
freedom  of  expression  that  added  to  their  noble  simplicity 
and  truth,  raises  them  at  once  into  the  highest  historical 
works. 

He  did  not  altogether  escape  the  fantastic  spirit  which 
was  prevalent  in  German  Art  in  his  time.  This  is  es- 
pecially manifest  in  his  famous  Dance  of  Death^  most  likely 
executed  during  the  Basel  period,  but  not  published  until 
1538  at  Lyons. 

An  important  and  independent  master  is  Lucas  Cranach 
(1472-1553).  Like  Durer,  Cranach's  mind  appears  to  have 
been  deeply  stirred  by  the  great  religious  movement  going 
on  about  him.  He  early  embraced  the  doctrines  of  the 
Reformation,  and  was  the  intimate  friend  of  Luther  and 
Melancthon. 

In  1493,  Cranach  accompanied  Frederick  the  Wise, 
Elector  of  Saxony  to  the  Holy  Land,  and  on  his  return  was 
appointed  court-painter  to  the  Electoral  House  of  Saxony, 
an  office  that  he  held  under  three  successive  Electors. 


300  GERMANY 

Cranach's  art  is  thoroughly  national.  He  delights  in 
quaint  invention,  and  sometimes  even  indulges  in  caricature. 
His  pictures  have  a  cheerfulness  of  character,  and  a  certain 
naive  child-like  grace  that  seems  like  the  unconscious  ex- 
pression of  the  happy  disposition  of  the  artist.  They  do 
not  affect  us  in  the  same  way  as  those  of  Albrecht  Diirer, 
for  there  is  no  sense  of  mystery  in  them.  The  mind  of 
Cranach  is  as  clear  as  that  of  Diirer  is  dark  to  human  sight. 
Even  his  allegories,  although  original  in  treatment,  are  of 
the  most  obvious  kind.  The  Fountain  of  Touth^  for  ex- 
ample, a  painting  in  the  Berlin  Gallery,  is  amusing  in  its 
realism. 

After  Diirer,  Holbein  and  Cranach,  German  Art  fell 
from  its  high  independent  position  to  a  mere  mannered  im- 
itation of  Italian. 

The  name  of  Balthasar  Denner  (1685-1749)  has  be- 
come almost  proverbial  for  minute  and  laborious  detail ;  de- 
tail sought  for  its  own  sake,  and  not  made  subordinate  to 
any  great  end.  The  triviality  of  Denner  contrasts  strongly 
with  the  lofty  aims  of  Raphael  Mengs  (1728-1774),  who 
in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  under  the  influence  of  Winckel- 
mann,  the  first  modern  expounder  of  the  meaning  of  Greek 
Art,  attempted  to  revive  the  severe  spirit  of  classic  art  and 
to  return  to  a  purely  ideal  conception  of  human  nature. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  present  century,  a  new  and 
powerful  impulse  was  given  to  German  Art  by  a  few  youth- 
ful and  aspiring  artists  who  were  at  that  time  pursuing 
their  studies  at  Rome,  and  who  almost  simultaneously  be- 
came animated  with  the  desire  of  reviving  not  so  much  the 
material  form,  as  the  true  Christian  spirit  of  early  religious 
art.  Foremost  in  this  movement  stand  the  names  of  Peter 
von  Cornelius  (1783-1867),  Friedrich  Overbeck  (1789- 


PAINTING  301 

i869),Philipp  Veit  (1793-1877),  Wilhelm  Schadow  (1789- 
1862),  Julius  Schnorr  (1794-1872),  and  Joseph  Fuhrich 
(1800-1876). 

Wilhelm  von  Kaulbach  (1805-1874),  Cornelius's  most 
distinguished  pupil,  advanced  a  step  towards  the  realistic  art 
of  to-day  (Battle  of  the  Huns,  1834)  ;  but  in  his  great  histor- 
ical effects  (the  wall  paintings  on  the  staircase  of  Berlin 
Museum  [1847—1863]  ),  he  shows  poverty  of  form  and  con- 
ventionality in  composition.  Kaulbach  was  influenced  by 
the  melodramatic  style  of  the  Belgians,  Biefve,  Wappers 
and  Gallait,  whilst  the  careful  and  realistic  historic  detail  and 
rich  colour  of  their  countryman,  Hendrik  Leys,  helped  to 
form  Karl  Friedrich  Lessing  (1808-1880). 

The  Diisseldorf  School  had  felt  the  influence  of  David 
Wilkie.  Karl  Hubner  (1814-1879)  painted  genre  pictures 
and  treated  political  and  social  questions  (The  Game  Laws}\ 
but  Lessing  struck  out  a  new  path  in  historic  art  by  his 
brilliant  and  characteristic  pictures  of  the  pre-Reformation 
period.  Following  him  to  some  extent,  Adolf  Menzel  (born 
1815),  has,  in  his  truthful  delineations  of  Frederick  the  Great 
and  his  times,  touched  a  chord  more  strictly  national,  with 
great  originality  and  power  of  execution.  Ludwig  Knaus 
(1829-1882),  the  painter  of  peasant-life  and  portrait,  is  re- 
markable for  clever  characterization  and  facile  technique. 

Into  landscape  Josef  Anton  Koch  (1768-1839)  intro- 
duced the  historic  element  (Macbeth  and  the  Witches, 
Innsbruck).  His  pupil,  Karl  Rottmann  (1798-1850)  exe- 
cuted in  fresco  a  series  of  twenty-eight  Italian  landscapes 
for  King  Ludwig  of  Bavaria.  His  works  are  distinguished 
for  their  delicate  observation  of  nature  and  breadth  of  style. 
Lessing  also  distinguished  himself  in  romantic  landscape. 
The  original  and  essentially  national  genius  of  Moritz  von 


302  GERMANY 

Schwindt  (1804—1871)  found  expression  in  his  poetic,  fan- 
tastic water-colour  illustrations  of  fairy  and  folk-lore 
(Melmine,  The  Seven  Ravens^  1858).  He  also  took  part 
in  some  of  the  great  decorative  works  in  fresco  (Vienna 
Opera  House,  etc.)  and  designed  the  glass  windows  for 
Glasgow  Cathedral.  Ludwig  Richter  (born  in  1803)  an 
original  and  humorous  illustrator  upon  wood  and  copper  of 
great  inventive  powers,  has  found  many  followers. 

The  modern  schools  of  Diisseldorf  and  Munich  are  prin- 
cipally distinguished  for  careful  and  clever  genre  painting. 
The  realistic  style  and  daring  technique  of  Karl  Piloty 
(1826-1886),  "  a  modern  Caravaggio,"  have  helped  to 
form  artists  such  as  Hans  Makart  (1840-1884),  Franz 
Defregger,  Gabriel  Max  and  Michael  Munkacsy.  In 
landscape  the  names  of  Eduard  Schleich  (1812-1874)  and 
the  Achenbachs  are  pre-eminent. 


MUSIC 

ESTHER  SINGLETON 

GERMANY'S  supremacy  in  the  Art  of  Music  is 
disputed  by  none.  No  nation  has  produced  so 
many  great  composers,  or  even  one  that  can  rank 
with  her  greatest  musical  geniuses.  Bach,  Handel,  Haydn, 
Mozart,  Beethoven,  Weber,  Schubert,  Schumann,  Mendels- 
sohn and  Wagner  o'ertop  a  long  list  of  lesser  lights,  which 
in  any  other  country  would  be  worthy  of  a  place  in  the 
front  rank.  In  oratorio,  opera,  song  and  all  forms  of  in- 
strumental music,  Germany  stands  alone.  Supreme  in  the 
science  of  harmony,  for  which  she  early  showed  her  special 
aptitude,  and  using  music  as  a  vehicle  for  thought  as  well 
as  emotion,  this  nation  has  carried  music  to  its  highest 
development  and  enriched  the  world  with  a  stupendous 
number  of  great  compositions. 

How  did  this  great  school  arise  ? 

Strange  to  say,  the  German  Polyphonic  School,  founded 
by  the  monk  Adam  de  Fulda  (born  in  the  middle  of  the 
Fifteenth  Century)  was  derived  from  the  Netherlands. 
The  schools  of  Munich  and  Nuremberg,  founded  by  Orlando 
di  Lasso,  a  Fleming  who  had  lived  in  Italy,  and  Hasler, 
united  the  Flemish  and  Italian  influences.  From  this  date, 
the  Germans  absorbed  a  great  deal  of  the  Italian  style. 

Before  taking  a  rapid  survey  of  German  music  after  the 
modern  tonality  was  established,  we  must  pause  to  note  the 
two  important  bodies,  the  Minnesinger  and  the  Me'nter singer, 
who  cultivated  music  according  to  ancient  traditions. 


304  GERMANY 

The  Minnesinger  were  the  German  counterpart  of  the 
Provencal  Troubadours  and  Trouveres.  Their  name  was 
derived  from  minne,  or  love ;  yet  love  was  not  their  exclu- 
sive theme.  Besides  songs  in  praise  of  women,  the  Minne- 
singer composed  odes  for  occasions  and  they  loved  to  sing 
praises  to  Nature,  and  in  honour  of  Spring.  They  wrote 
the  airs  as  well  as  the  words  and  accompanied  themselves 
on  viol  or  harp.  The  Minnesinger  included  emperors, 
princes,  nobles  and  knights,  as  well  as  men  of  humbler 
birth.  Henry  of  Veldig  (Twelfth  Century),  who  lived  at 
the  court  of  Frederick  Barbarossa,  Emperor  of  Germany, 
in  Swabia,  is  regarded  as  the  first  of  the  Minnesinger  and 
Walter  von  der  Vogelweide  (born  about  1170)  as  the  last. 
The  greatest  of  the  Minnesinger, — Wolfram  von  Eschen- 
bach,  Henry  von  Ofterdingen,  Hartmann  von  der  Aue, 
Gottfried  von  Strasburg  and  Ulrich  von  Lichtenstein — 
wrote  in  the  Swabian  dialect.  The  Swabian  princes  ranked 
first  as  patrons  of  the  Minnesinger,  and  next  to  them  comes 
Hermann,  Landgrave  of  Thuringia,  in  the  early  part  of  the 
Thirteenth  Century,  at  whose  court  at  the  Wartburg,  a 
famous  contest  took  place,  when  Heinrich  von  Ofterdingen 
was  outsung  by  Walter  von  der  Vogelweide  and  the 
magician  Klingsor  of  Hungary  by  Wolfram  von  Eschen- 
bach.  The  music  of  the  Minnesinger,  like  that  of  the 
Trouveres  and  Troubadours  was  ecclesiastical  in  form  and 
monotonous  in  style. 

To  ^^.Minnesinger  succeeded  the  Meistersinger,  who  flour- 
ished in  the  Fourteenth  Century.  Their  reputed  founder 
was  Heinrich  von  Meissen,  called  "  Frauenlob."  The 
companies,  or  guilds,  that  sprang  up  in  many  of  the  towns, 
such  as  Frankfort,  Mainz,  Strasburg,  Augsburg,  Nurem- 
berg, Regensberg,  Ulm  and  Breslau,  were  composed  of 


MUSIC  30$ 

burghers  and  peasants.  Nuremberg,  where  dwelt  the  cob- 
bler poet,  Hans  Sachs  (1494-1576),  was  the  centre  for 
these  guilds.  Among  the  notable  Meistersinger  were  Till 
Eulenspiegel,  Sebastian  Brandt,  Heinrich  von  Miigeln, 
Michael  Behaim  and  Hans  Rosenblut.  The  title  of  Master 
was  only  awarded  to  a  member  who  invented  a  new  form 
of  verse  :  Hans  Sachs  prided  himself  on  having  composed 
4,275  Meisterlieder.  These  songs  were  subjected  to  a 
rigid  series  of  rules  known  as  the  tabulatur.  The  music 
was  also  formal,  and  characterized  by  many  absurdities, 
which  have  been  delightfully  satirized  by  Wagner  in  his 
opera  of  Die  Meistersinger.  These  arbitrary  laws  and 
elaborate  rules  in  the  hands  of  uneducated  men  resulted  in 
absurd  pedantry.  However,  the  Meistersinger  took  such 
firm  root  in  Germany,  that  the  last  guild  was  not  disbanded 
until  1839  at  Ulm. 

Sometimes  also  the  Meistersinger  made  use  of  the  Volkslied 
(or  folk-song)  that  had  sprung  from  the  hearts  of  the  people 
and  lived  from  lip  to  lip  for  generations  upon  generations 
until  it  reached  its  height  in  the  Sixteenth  Century.  Al- 
though the  Volkslieder  included  every  known  sentiment,  as  a 
rule,  the  music  was  better  than  the  words.  The  simple 
and  often  beautiful  tunes  were  much  used  by  the  leaders  of 
the  Reformation,  who,  wishing  their  congregations  to  join 
in  the  singing,  set  their  hymns  to  familiar  tunes.  A  notable 
example  of  this  is  the  old  love  song,  "  Mein  gemuth  ist  mir 
verwirretj'  which  was  a  favourite  in  both  Roman  Catholic 
and  Lutheran  churches,  and  survives  in  Bach's  Passion 
Music  according  to  St.  Matthew  in  the  Chorale  "O  Haupt 
voll  Blut  und  Wunden." 

The  germs  of  the  opera  may  be  detected  in  the  early 
Miracle  and  Mystery-plays,  or  singspiel^  which  had  music 


306  GERMANY 

interspersed  with  the  spoken  dialogue.  These  were  per- 
formed in  Latin  at  first  ;  but  in  the  Fourteenth  Century  in 
one  called  the  Marienklage,  Mary  sings  in  German,  and  in 
the  Spiel  von  den  zehn  Jungfrauen^  performed  in  Eisenach 
in  1322,  all  the  characters  use  German.  The  first  singspiel, 
in  which  there  is  no  spoken  dialogue,  and  which  is  there- 
fore truly  a  "Singing-play,"  was  performed  in  Torgau  in 
1627  on  the  occasion  of  the  marriage  of  George  II.,  Land- 
grave of  Hesse,  with  the  sister  of  the  Elector  of  Saxony. 
The  libretto  chosen  was  Rinuccini's  Dafne,  translated  by 
Orpitz  and  set  to  music  by  Heinrich  Schiitz.  Soon  after- 
wards operas  were  performed  in  Munich,  Vienna  and 
Regensburg;  but  they  were  sung  in  Italian.  The  true 
cradle  of  the  German  Opera  was  at  Hamburg,  where 
Reinhold  Keiser  (1673—1739),  produced  so  many  works  of 
his  own  and  other  composers  that  his  theatre  soon  be- 
came famous.  Handel  produced  here  his  Almira  and  Nero 
in  1705,  and  other  works  before  he  settled  in  London. 

The  German  composers  early  showed  a  talent  for  con- 
struction and  harmony,  and  also  an  appreciation  of  instru- 
ments apart  from  their  use  as  a  mere  support  to  voices. 

Rockstro  aptly  says  :  "  The  strict  counterpoint  of  the 
Sixteenth  Century  gave  place  to  the  modern  system .  of 
Part-writing,  which,  has  ever  since,  formed  the  true  strength, 
not  of  every  German  School,  but  every  German  composer 
from  Bach  to  Brahms ;  while,  by  confining  its  attention 
chiefly  to  melody,  the  pedantry  of  the  Renaissance  gave 
birth  in  Italy  to  another  style,  from  which  every  Italian 
composer  from  Monteverde  to  Rossini  has  drawn  his  most 
graceful  inspirations  and  his  most  captivating  effects." 

The  "  musician's  musician,"  John  Sebastian  Bach 
(Eisenach,  16855  Leipzig,  1750)  studied  the  old  masters 


MUSIC  307 

of  his  day  and  frequently  went  to  Dresden  to  hear  the  new 
Italian  operas  under  Hasse.  Bach  belongs  to  the  transi- 
tion period ;  for  although  he  stands  at  the  head  of  the 
modern  German  school,  he  wrote  for  instruments  that  are 
now  obsolete  and  much  of  the  old  style  lingers  in  his  works. 
His  extraordinary  knowledge  of  counterpoint  is  exhibited  in 
his  great  Musikalische  Opfer,  dedicated  to  Frederick  the 
Great,  his  Kunst  der  Fuge,  Das  Wohltemperirte  Clavier,  his 
settings  of  the  Passion,  oratorios  and  cantatas.  Bach  wrote 
no  secular  music  and  no  operas.  He  was  a  magnificent 
performer  on  the  organ  and  clavichord.  His  sons,  espe- 
cially Wilhelm  Friedman  (1710-1784),  and  Karl  Philipp 
Emanuel  (1714-1788),  were  highly  gifted  musicians.  The 
Bach  family  was  remarkable :  in  seven  generations  there 
were  forty-nine  musicians,  twenty  of  whom  were  excep- 
tionally talented. 

The  next  towering  genius  is  Handel  (Halle,  1685; 
London,  1759),  who  played  well  on  all  the  instruments  of 
his  day,  especially  the  organ.  At  Rome  he  outstripped 
Corelli  in  playing  his  own  compositions  on  the  violin.  For 
a  time  he  conducted  the  orchestra  at  the  Hamburg  theatre, 
where  some  of  his  operas  were  produced.  In  1710,  he 
went  to  England  to  live,  and  there  produced  his  long  list 
of  now  forgotten  operas — Rinaldo,  Pastor  Fido,  Theseus, 
Amadis  da  Gaula,  Acis  and  Galatea,  etc.,  and  the  colossal 
oratorios  of  Israel  in  Egypt,  The  Messiah,  Saul,  Samson,  etc. 
His  long  list  of  compositions  includes  twenty  oratorios,  fifty 
operas,  besides  cantatas,  instrumental  pieces  and  songs. 

Even  more  prolific  was  Haydn,  "  the  Father  of  the 
Symphony"  (Rohrau,  1732;  Vienna,  1809),  who  perfected 
the  form  of  the  sonata  and  symphony.  Notwithstanding 
the  beauty  of  his  oratorio  The  Creation,  he  rendered  his 


308  GERMANY 

greatest  service  to  the  Art  of  Music  in  instrumental  music. 
Haydn  acknowledged  his  indebtedness  for  musical  forms  to 
the  works  of  Karl  Philipp  Emanuel  Bach;  but  he  enriched 
them  and  gave  them  permanence.  Although  Haydn  com- 
posed slowly,  his  works  are  numerous.  Among  them  are : 
nineteen  operas,  five  oratorios,  fifteen  masses,  one  hun- 
dre  1  and  eighteen  symphonies,  eighty-three  quartets,  twenty- 
four  trios,  twenty-four  concertos  for  different  instruments, 
thirty-nine  canzonets,  and  forty-four  sonatas  for  the 
pianoforte,  which  had  now  superseded  the  clavier,  or 
clavichord. 

Uniting  all  the  best  qualities  of  the  German  and  Italian 
schools,  a  master  of  all  technical  forms,  unsurpassed  for  the 
finish  and  perfection  of  style  and  treatment  and  endowed 
with  grace,  gaiety,  beauty  and  the  gift  of  melody,  Mozart 
(Salzburg,  1756;  Vienna,  1791),  is  one  of  the  greatest 
musical  geniuses  in  history.  It  is  difficult  to  realize  that 
the  composer  of  so  long  and  great  a  list  of  symphonies, 
instrumental  pieces  and  operas  lived  but  thirty-five  years  ; 
and  sad  to  think  that  the  composer  of  Le  nozze  di  Figaro 
(1786);  Don  Giovanni  (1787);  Die  Zauberflbte  (1791),  and 
the  Requiem  (1791),  should  have  struggled  with  poverty 
and  found  a  pauper's  grave. 

Rockstro  remarks  :  "  He  took  indeed  the  greatest  pos- 
sible interest  in  all  that  concerned  the  advancement  of  Ger- 
man Art,  and  when  commissioned  to  write  a  work  for  the 
National  Opera  founded  at  Vienna  by  the  Emperor  Joseph, 
he  threw  his  best  energies  into  the  welcome  task  and  pro- 
duced in  1782,  a  masterpiece — Die  Entfuhrung  aus  dem 
Serail — which  at  once  elevated  the  Singspiel  to  the  level  he 
had  already  won  for  the  Italian  Opera,  and  secured  it  a  rec- 
ognized status  at  the  embodiment  of  a  conception  peculiar 


MUSIC  309 

to  and  truly  worthy  of  the  great  Teutonic  School.  We 
rarely  hear  this  delightful  opera  now  even  in  Germany  ;  but 
its  beauty  is  of  a  kind  which  can  never  grow  old.  It  teems 
with  lovely  melodies  from  beginning  to  end ;  and  the  dis- 
position of  his  voices  leads  to  the  introduction  of  a  wealth 
of  concerted  music  of  the  highest  order.  It  was  received 
with  enthusiasm  both  in  Vienna  and  at  Prague.  Mozart 
followed  it  up  in  1786  with  Der  Schauspieldirektor^  a 
charming  little  piece  filled  with  delightful  music;  and  in 
1791,  he  crowned  his  labours  by  the  production  of  the 
noblest  lyric  comedy  existing  in  the  German  language — 
Die  Zauberflote" 

Beethoven  (Bonn,  1770;  Vienna,  1827),  first  followed  in 
the  steps  of  Haydn  and  Mozart ;  but  in  his  later  period  be- 
came self-reliant  and  even  daring.  His  one  opera,  Fidelia^ 
is  thoroughly  German  in  spirit.  Notwithstanding  his 
superb  chamber-music,  sonatas  for  the  piano,  etc.,  his 
greatest  fame  was  attained  in  his  nine  symphonies,  which, 
unequalled  in  beauty,  majesty  and  sublimity,  mark  the 
highest  point  to  which  instrumental  music  has  attained. 
Beethoven  was  a  fine  pianist  and  violinist. 

Of  entirely  different  cast  of  mind  yet  thoroughly 
national,  the  romantic  Weber  (Holstein,  1786;  London, 
1826),  contributed  to  the  German  school  his  beautiful 
melodies  and  bold  and  novel  effects  of  harmony  and  mod- 
ulation. Weber  forms  a  new  era  in  music.  Under  his 
skilled  and  poetic  treatment,  the  orchestra  becomes,  as  it 
were,  a  palette  full  of  delicate  and  richest  colours.  His  use 
of  the  wood-wind  in  the  great  operas  of  Der  Freiscbiitz 
(1822),  Euryanthe  (1823),  and  Oberon  (1826),  is  enchant- 
ing. Dr.  Spitta  describes  Weber's  position  in  music.  He 
writes  : 


310  GERMANY 

"  Of  all  the  German  musicians  of  the  Nineteenth  Cen- 
tury none  has  exercised  a  greater  influence  over  his  own 
generation  and  that  succeeding  it  than  Weber;  indeed  there 
is  scarcely  a  branch  of  artistic  life  in  which  his  impulse  is 
not  still  felt.  The  historian  of  music  in  the  Nineteenth 
Century  will  have  to  make  Weber  his  starting  point.  His 
influence  was  even  greater  than  that  of  Beethoven,  for  deeply 
imbued  though  Beethoven  was  with  the  modern  spirit,  he 
adhered  as  a  rule  to  the  traditions  of  the  Eighteenth  Cen- 
tury. These  Weber  casts  aside  and  starts  after  fresh  ideals. 
As  a  natural  consequence  he  was  far  less  perfect  in  form 
than  Beethoven,  nor  was  he  his  equal  in  power,  but  in  origi- 
nality he  has  never  been  surpassed  by  any  musician,  ancient 
or  modern.  The  germs  of  life  he  scattered  broadcast  defy 
calculation,  and  the  whole  of  German  opera,  down  to 
Wagner's  latest  works,  is  evolved  from  Weber's  spirit. 
From  his  time  the  musician  of  genius  who  was  a 
musician  and  nothing  more,  like  Franz  Schubert,  became 
impossible  in  Germany.  The  characteristics  which  distin- 
guish Mendelssohn,  Schumann,  Hiller,  Wagner,  Liszt,  and 
other  great  musicians  who  are  fully  developed  men,  from 
the  older  type  of  musician,  are  precisely  those  first  found  in 
Weber." 

The  genial  Mendelssohn  (Hamburg,  1809 ;  Leipzig, 
1845),  was  not  only  a  versatile  and  great  composer,  a 
superb  pianist  and  conductor,  but  did  much  to  elevate  the 
cause  of  music  in  his  day.  It  was  Mendelssohn  who  gave 
the  first  performance  of  Bach's  Matthew  Passion  since 
that  composer's  death,  and  laboured  ardently  to  increase 
Bach's  popularity.  He  brought  out  old  and  new  works  of 
merit  at  the  musicial  festivals  of  Germany  and  England ; 
and  was  for  many  years  the  most  important  musical  figure 


MUSIC  311 

in  Germany.  His  oratorios  of  St.  Paul  and  Elijah  bear 
comparison  with  Handel's  works ;  his  music  to  A  Midsum- 
mer Night's  Dream  shows  his  graceful  fancy  and  poetic  feel- 
ing ;  his  part-songs  are  perfect  in  form  and  treatment  ;  and 
his  pianoforte  music  and  concerto  for  the  violin  will  never 
die. 

Extraordinary  indeed  was  the  activity  of  Schubert  (Vienna, 
1797;  Vienna,  1828),  who  before  he  was  twenty,  com- 
posed the  great  song  of  the  Erlkonig — his  first  opus ! 
Although  his  varied  compositions  are  numerous,  and  espe- 
cially beautiful  are  his  symphonies,  his  greatest  fame  rests 
upon  his  songs  :  no  less  than  455  of  these  were  published,  and 
many  of  them  are  gems  of  the  first  water.  Schubert  was 
supreme  in  all  forms  of  song.  The  settings  of  Goethe's 
Gretchen  am  Spinnrad,  the  Wanderers  Nachlied  and  lyrics 
from  the  Westoslicher  Divan  and  his  cycles  of  the  IVinter- 
reise,  Miillerlieder  and  Schwanengesang  made  an  epoch  in 
the  history  of  the  German  song.  He  leaves  much  to  the 
accompaniment,  sometimes  depicting  a  mood  as  in  Du  hist 
der  Ruh,  and  at  others,  the  rustling  of  the  leaves  as  in  the 
Lindenbaum,  the  wild  clatter  of  the  horse's  hoofs  as  in  the 
Erlkonig,  and  the  howling  of  the  wind  and  tolling  of  the 
convent  bell  as  in  Die  junge  Nonne.  With  regard  to  these 
exquisite  productions,  Sir  George  Grove  says  : 

"  The  music  changes  with  the  words  as  a  landscape  does 
when  sun  and  cloud  pass  over  it.  And  in  this  Schubert 
has  anticipated  Wagner,  since  the  words  to  which  he  writes 
are  as  much  the  basis  of  his  songs  as  Wagner's  librettos  are 
of  his  operas.  What  this  has  brought  him  to  in  such  cases 
as  the  Erl-King,  the  Wanderer,  Schwager  Kronos,  the  Gruppe 
aus  dem  Tartarus,  the  Shakespeare  songs  of  Sylvia  and 
Hark,  Hark  the  Lark,  those  of  Ellen  and  the  Huntsman  in 


312  GERMANY 

the  Lady  of  the  Lake,  even  Englishmen  can  judge j  but  what 
he  did  in  the  German  literature  generally  may  be  gathered 
from  iVIayrhofer's  confession,  doubly  remarkable  when  com- 
ing from  a  man  of  such  strong  individuality — who  some- 
where says  that  he  did  not  understand  the  full  force  even 
of  his  own  poems  until  he  had  heard  Schubert's  setting  of 
them." 

Schubert  left  but  two  successors  in  the  German  Lied, — 
Schumann  and  Robert  Franz. 

Schumann  (Zwickau,  1810;  Endernich,  1856),  was  the 
originator  of  a  new  style  of  pianoforte  music.  His  numer- 
ous compositions  for  his  favourite  instrument  and  his  or- 
chestral and  chamber  music  compositions  take  high  rank. 
Some  of  his  choral  works,  cantatas,  part-songs,  etc.,  his 
incidental  music  to  Goethe's  Faust  and  Byron's  Manfred 
adequately  exhibit  his  genius.  He  was  also  a  famous  critic 
and  the  editor  of  the  Neue  Zeitsckrift  fur  Musik  (1833-34), 
which  had  much  influence  in  directing  popular  taste. 

His  songs  very  nearly  attain  the  greatness  of  Schubert's ; 
for  like  Schubert,  Schumann,  by  means  of  his  beautiful 
melodies  and  annotations,  as  we  may  call  their  accompani- 
ments, adds  lustre  to  every  poem  that  he  treats. 

"  If  Schubert,  at  his  best,  grasps  a  poem  with  the  intense 
grip  of  a  dramatist  and  sings  as  though  he  struck  up  from 
the  centre  of  some  dramatic  situation  j  if  Schumann  de- 
claims his  verse  like  a  perfect  reader,  or  illuminates  it  as 
an  imaginative  draughtsman  might  grace  the  margin  of 
some  precious  book,  or  dreams  over  it  as  a  tender  and  pro- 
found musician  is  prone  to  dream  over  some  inexpressible 
sentiment — Franz  pursues  a  path  of  his  own ;  he  translates 
the  poem  into  music,  that  is  to  say  he  depicts  in  musical 
outlines  the  exact  emotional  state  from  which  it  appears 


MUSIC  313 

a  beautiful  composition  apart  from  the  voice-part.  His 
moods  are  as  a  rule  lyrical,  but  sometimes,  as,  for  example 
in  Im  Herbst^  he  rises  to  an  extreme  height  of  dramatic 
expression."  l 

Among  other  great  composers  whose  songs  take  rank 
among  the  best,  Beethoven  has  a  place.  His  greatest, 
Adelaide,  is  really  in  the  form  of  a  scena.  Mozart's  most 
famous  song  Das  Veilcben,  to  Goethe's  words,  is  also  hardly 
a  lied.  Mendelssohn's  Auf  flugeln  des  Gesanges  is  justly 
admired,  but  his  chief  fame  as  a  song-writer  rests  upon  his 
very  beautiful  part-songs. 

Another  species  of  German  song  which  is  a  combination 
of  the  Volkslied  and  Kunstlied  should  not  be  forgotten  in  a  re- 
view of  German  music.  This,  called  the  Jfolksthumlicheslied, 
is  perhaps  best  translated  as  popular  song,  although  it  has 
none  of  the  vulgarity  of  the  street  or  the  music-hall  about 
it.  Sometimes  it  occurs  in  an  opera  or  musical  comedy  j 
sometimes  it  is  of  anonymous  or  disputed  authorship ;  and 
sometimes  it  is  composed  by  musicians  who  devote  them- 
selves to  it.  Everybody  in  Germany  is  familiar  with  such 
songs  as  Der  mat  ist  gekommen,  O  Tannebaum,  O  Tan- 
nebaum,  Gaudeamus,  Morgenroth,  Morgenroth,  Ich  weiss  nicht 
was  soil  es  bedeuten,  Was  ist  der  Deutscben  Vaterland,  etc. 

Returning  to  our  composers,  the  name  of  Wagner  (Leip- 
zig, 1813;  Vienna,  1883),  overshadows  that  of  every  other 
composer  of  his  time.  The  Flying  Dutchman,  Tannhauser 
and  Lohengrin  are  among  his  early  works  and  the  two  last 
enjoy  popularity.  His  greatest  works  are,  however,  Tristan 
und  Isolde,  given  under  Hans  von  Bulow's  direction  in 
Munich  in  1865  ;  Die  Meistersinger  (Munich,  1868),  and 
Der  Ring  des  Nibelungen,  This  colossal  masterpiece  con- 
iW.  S.  Rockstro. 


314  GERMANY 

sisting  of  a  prelude  and  three  dramas — Das  Rheingold^  Die 
Walkure,  Siegfried  and  Die  Gotterdammerung  was  first  given 
in  its  entirety  at  the  Bayreuth  Theatre  in  1876  j  but  Das 
Rheingold  and  Die  Walkiire  were  performed  in  Munich  in 
1869  and  1870  respectively.  Parsifal  was  brought  out  at 
Bayreuth  in  1882. 

Wagner's  works  are  planned  on  a  grand  scale.  It  is 
hard  to  say  whether  his  dramas  are  framed  in  music  or 
whether  the  music  is  explained  by  the  drama,  so  thoroughly 
are  they  one ;  but  as  the  action  of  the  characters  is  often 
arrested  while  the  symphonic  utterance  of  the  orchestra 
takes  the  place  of  the  Greek  chorus,  the  instrumental 
music  is  of  more  importance  than  the  acting  or  singing 
of  the  characters.  Wagner  is  a  supreme  master  of  instru- 
mentation. His  orchestra  is  richer  and  fuller  than  that  of 
the  classic  masters,  which  is  not  only  due  to  the  addition  of 
many  instruments  unknown  in  Beethoven's  time,  but  to  his 
elaborate  treatment  of  the  string-quartet  and  the  frequent 
subdivision  of  various  groups  of  instruments.  For  in- 
stance, the  mysterious  effect  in  the  prelude  to  Lohengrin  is 
produced  by  the  subdivision  of  the  muted  violins. 

During  Wagner's  life  musical  Germany  was  divided  into 
two  factions, — the  followers  of  Wagner  and  the  followers 
of  Brahms  (Hamburg,  1833;  Vienna,  1897).  Schumann 
predicted  a  great  future  for  him  in  1853,  and  gave  him  the 
support  of  the  Neue  Zeitscbrift  fur  Musik.  Brahms  is 
scholarly  and  profound,  a  follower  of  Beethoven  especially 
in  his  Symphonies.  His  fame  was  established  by  his  first 
symphony  op.  68,  which  was  first  performed  at  Carlsruhe 
in  1876.  His  pianoforte  music,  chamber  music,  songs, 
choral  works,  and  various  forms  of  instrumental  music  have 
won  for  him  a  high  place. 


MUSIC  315 

The  opera  that  has  attained  the  greatest  reputation  since 
the  days  of  Wagner  is  Hansel  and  Gretel  by  Humperdinck. 
Although  of  small  dimensions,  this  fairy  opera  is  of  great 
musical  value  and  charm.  Richard  Strauss,  the  most  con- 
spicuous composer  at  the  dawn  of  the  Twentieth  Century, 
has  written  several  fine  orchestral  compositions,  such  as, 
for  example,  the  Don  Juan  Fantasie,  and  some  beautiful 
songs.  Owing  to  his  eccentricities,  his  position  as  a  great 
composer  is  disputed. 

Two  musicians  although  not  of  German  birth,  Liszt 
(Raiding,  Hungary,  1811 ;  Bayreuth,  1886)  and  Rubinstein 
(Wechwotynez,  Russia,  1830;  1894),  are  classed  in  the 
German  school.  Not  only  as  pianist  and  composer  did 
Liszt  influence  music,  but  settling  in  Weimar  in  1848  as 
conductor  of  the  Court  Theatre  he  bought  out  Wagner's 
Flying  Dutchman^  Tannhauser  and  Lohengrin  and  devoted 
his  energies  to  making  popular  what  was  then  called  "  The 
Music  of  the  Future."  He  also  became  an  influential 
teacher,  attracting  students  of  the  piano  from  all  parts  of 
the  world.  Liszt's  generosity  and  charity  were  phenom- 
enal :  his  purse  enabled  many  a  struggling  musician — 
Wagner  among  the  rest — to  develop  his  talent. 

Rubinstein's  Symphonies,  among  which  is  the  noble 
Ocean^  are  descendants  of  Beethoven's  works  ;  his  songs 
and  pianoforte  music,  although  full  of  Russian  melody,  are 
treated  after  the  German  style. 

As  pianist,  conductor  and  editor  of  the  classics,  the 
scholarly  Hans  von  Bulow  (Dresden,  1830;  ,  1894),  ren- 
dered great  service  to  music,  although  as  a  composer  he 
takes  rank  with  such  lesser  lights  as  Spohr,  Raff,  Gold- 
marck,  Goetz,  Cornelius,  Max  Bruch,  etc. 

The   list    of  notable    conductors    and    performers  who 


31 6  GERMANY 

by  their  choice  and  interpretation  of  masterpieces  and  the 
works  of  new  composers,  have  contributed  towards  the 
high  state  of  musical  cultivation  in  Berlin,  Dresden,  Leip- 
zig, Munich  and  other  centres,  would  be  long ;  as  would 
also  the  names  of  those  who  have  invented  and  improved 
various  instruments.  At  the  same  time  that  Cristofori  in 
Italy  and  Marius  in  France  were  inventing  the  harpsichord 
(1714),  a  German  organist,  Schroter,  was  busy  with  the 
same  instrument.  The  violin-makers  of  South  Germany, 
the  chief  of  whom  were  Jakob  Stainer  and  Klotz,  form  a 
distinct  school.  Their  instruments  command  large  prices. 

A  German  was  the  inventor  of  the  clarionet;  the  flute 
is  indebted  to  Quantz,  Ribock,  Trommlitz  and  particu- 
larly Boehm  for  improvements;  Lotz  of  Presburg  im- 
proved the  basset-horn ;  and  to  the  Sax  family  many 
modern  brass  instruments  owe  their  existence. 

In  the  fields  of  antiquarian  research,  history  and  crit- 
icism, the  German  holds  a  distinguished  place ;  the  great 
cities  are  centres  of  musical  culture,  supporting  fine  or- 
chestras and  operas;  while  the  music-publishers  issue  an 
enormous  number  of  classic  works  and  novelties. 


GERMANY  OF  TO-DAY 

MRS.  ALEC  TWEEDIE 

THE  Kaiser  has  won  ! 
It  has  been  a  battle-royal,  a  battle  between  an 
Emperor    and    his    people.     Germany    is    going 
through  a  great  political  crisis,  and  that  crisis  is  by  no 
means  ended  by  the  election  of  a  new  Reichstag.     It  so 
chanced  that  I  was  in  Berlin  when  the  "  colonial  scandals  " 
were  being  discussed  in  Parliament.     A  few  days  later  those 
scandals  caused  the  dissolution  of  the  Government. 

With  one  election  just  over — the  most  stormy  the  coun- 
try has  ever  known — and  every  prospect  of  another  at  no 
distant  date,  one  wonders  what  is  to  be  the  end  of  the  polit- 
ical war. 

Hearing  that  the  sitting  on  that  particularly  wintry  after- 
noon would  be  interesting — the  House  sits  from  one  o'clock 
to  seven — a  friend  offered  to  escort  me  thither.  He  sent  in 
his  card  to  one  of  the  Ministers.  A  few  moments  later  the 
greatest  excitement  known  for  over  twenty  years  startled  the 
Reichstag.  We  entered  by  the  famous  "  Portal  Ztf  «',"  a 
door  through  which,  in  his  days  of  power,  Bismarck  had  so 
often  passed.  Up  the  red-carpeted  stairs  we  mounted, 
through  handsome  rooms  with  pictures  on  their  walls,  be- 
neath which  Ministers  sit  to  chat  over  important  political  af- 
fairs. At  the  head  of  the  large  hall  stands  a  marble  statue 
of  the  great  Prince  who  led  his  country  through  war  to 
peace,  and  planted  the  seeds — tiny  seeds  then — from  which 
in  less  than  forty  years  has  grown  such  wondrous  fruit. 


318  GERMANY 

For  a  moment  let  us  take  a  peep  at  the  Reichstag  itself. 
It  is  a  handsome  modern  structure ;  but  then  nearly  every- 
thing in  Berlin  is  new,  except  the  old  Schloss  and  a  hand- 
ful of  public  buildings.  The  greater  part  of  Berlin  as  it 
stands  to-day  was  conceived  after  the  close  of  the  Franco- 
German  war ;  and  this  vast,  wealthy,  modern  business  town 
is  one  of  the  signs  of  the  evolution  of  Germany.  In  all 
three  hundred  and  ninety-seven  members  sit  in  the  Reich- 
stag. Of  these,  Prussia  returns  two  hundred  and  thirty-six, 
Bavaria  forty-eight,  Saxony  twenty-three,  Wiirtemberg 
seventeen,  Alsace-Lorraine  fifteen ;  the  Gross-Herzog- 
thumer,  Herzogthiimer,  and  Furstenthum  return  members 
varying  in  number  from  one  to  fourteen ;  Liibeck  and 
Bremen  are  represented  by  one  only;  while  Hamburg 
sends  three. 

From  above,  a  huge  glass  roof  lets  in  the  light  of  day 
upon  the  scene,  while  electric  lights  filter  through  this  glass 
dome  in  the  hours  of  night.  Each  member  has  his  own 
desk  and  seat,  as  in  the  Capitol  at  Washington.  They  fill 
the  body  of  the  hall.  Behind  are  galleries  for  the  public, 
and  here  men  and  women  alike  find  seats  as  listeners. 
Women  are  not  hidden  behind  a  grille  as  in  the  British 
House  of  Commons,  but  are  treated  like  ordinary  human 
beings,  allowed  fresh  air  and  light,  and  given  the  possibility 
of  both  hearing  and  seeing.  In  front  of  the  members' 
benches  is  a  long,  high  dais,  on  which  the  Bundesrath  sit 
facing  the  House.  The  Bundesrath  is  representative  of  the 
different  States  which  form  the  Empire.  The  members  are 
nominated  by  the  Sovereign  of  their  respective  States,  and 
retain  their  position  at  their  Sovereign's  will.  In  a  House 
so  constituted  the  now  famous  "  row  "  took  place. 

The  Kaiser's  present  position  demands  that  he  shall  work 


GERMANY  OF  TO-DAY  319 

with  the  great  Catholic  party — the  famous  Centrum — or  he 
will  be  in  peril.  The  Pope  saved  the  situation.  Naturally, 
the  Vatican  took  the  side  of  the  Government  in  Germany. 
They  could  not  afford  to  do  otherwise,  with  their  great  polit- 
ical struggle  going  on  in  France. 

The  Kaiser  still  holds  the  reins  of  government,  even  if 
the  Catholic  steed  he  is  riding  proves  a  little  restive.  Peo- 
ple must,  however,  remember  there  are  two  bits  in  that 
animal's  mouth,  a  curb  and  a  snaffle.  One  is  called  Con- 
servative and  the  other  Liberal.  In  the  meantime,  the  steed 
known  as  the  German  Government  and  its  Ally  Catholi- 
cism are  ambling  steadily,  the  Kaiser  holding  the  ribbons. 
Once  the  horse  begins  to  pull,  to  jib,  or  buck,  then  comes 
the  moment  of  trial.  If  the  Conservatives  and  Liberals 
don't  work  together,  over  goes  the  whole  bag  of  tricks,  the 
rider  will  be  dismounted,  and  another  appeal  to  the  people 
will  be  necessary. 

The  position  of  the  German  Government  is  by  no  means 
secure.  It  has  to  rely  on  a  very  small  majority,  which  may 
at  any  moment  be  withdrawn  by  Rome.  Britain,  being  a 
Protestant  country,  will  watch  this  position  with  interest. 

The  present  Reichstag  contains  twenty-two  different 
political  parties.  Some  have  only  one  representative,  it  is 
true,  but  there  are  twenty-two  different  forces  to  deal  with. 
That  in  itself  is  no  easy  task.  There  are  four  strong  par- 
ties :  the  Catholic  Church  under  orders  from  the  Vatican, 
the  Conservative  and  Liberal  politicians,  and  the  Social 
Democrats  or  labour  representatives.  That  horse  will  take 
a  deal  of  riding,  and  it  will  require  all  the  Emperor's  tact 
to  keep  him  in  the  saddle  at  all. 

Another  lesson  this  election  has  vouchsafed — namely,  the 
people  of  Germany  take  a  much  greater  interest  in  politics 


320  GERMANY 

than  formerly.  The  Kaiser  appealed  to  every  one  to  vote, 
and  the  result  was  surprising.  About  seventy-five  per  cent, 
of  the  voters  formerly  rallied  to  the  poll ;  but  that  number 
was  augmented  to  something  like  ninety  per  cent,  at  this 
election.  Another  sign  of  the  awakening  of  the  Fatherland  ; 
another  token  of  the  interest  of  the  people  in  public  affairs. 

Peace  and  prosperity  have  reigned  in  Germany  for  thirty- 
six  years — not  a  long  time  in  the  making  of  history  ;  but 
that  period,  brief  though  it  is,  has  done  much  for  the  devel- 
opment of  the  nation.  Centuries  of  war  and  minor  dis- 
turbances ended  in  1870,  when  the  German  Empire  was 
born.  The  States  federated  themselves  under  a  constitu- 
tion in  1871,  when  the  executive  power,  within  certain 
limits,  was  given  to  the  Emperor.  Universal  suffrage  was 
created,  and  the  Federal  Council  and  Reichstag  came  into 
being.  The  people  laid  aside  the  sword.  Gradually  they 
drifted  from  the  agricultural  districts  to  the  towns,  as  one 
manufactory  after  another  was  opened,  and  to-day  modern 
Germany  has  become  one  of  the  great  producers  of  the 
world.  A  country  hitherto  poor  has  amassed  wealth ;  occupa- 
tion has  been  found  for  the  men,  more  leisure  for  the  women. 
Modern  Germany  is  the  product  of  human  industry. 

For  thirty-six  years  Germany  has  experienced  the  work- 
ing of  a  Constitution.  The  actual  cause  of  the  late  crisis 
was  the  sending  out  of  a  few  thousand  troops  to  the  Ger- 
man colonies  in  South-west  Africa ;  but  much  else  lies  be- 
hind, and  possibly  in  this  country  it  is  not  sufficiently 
realized  to  how  great  an  extent  Ultramontanism  is  mixed  up 
with  the  question.  It  must  be  understood  that  Germany  is 
about  one-third  Catholic  and  two-thirds  Protestant.  For 
instance,  the  Rhineland  is  almost  wholly  Catholic. 

The  powerful  Centrum  (Catholic)  party  originated  after 


GERMANY  OF  TO-DAY  321 

the  war  of  1870,  when  it  found  an  able  leader  in  Windhorst. 
The  statesman  who  ruled  at  that  time  was  a  strong  oppo- 
nent of  the  doctrine  of  papal  infallibility.  As  is  well  known, 
this  doctrine  only  applies  to  questions  of  creed.  The  Pope 
only  claims  to  be  infallible  when  he  speaks  ex  cathedra. 
But  Bismarck  maintained  that  in  politics  the  distinction  is 
practically  valueless,  as  the  Pope  has  the  right  to  decide  how 
far  the  idea  of  "  creed  "  shall  go.  As  an  instance,  the 
Catholic  Church  has  always  claimed  the  right  to  control  the 
education  of  the  people,  and  the  doctrine  of  infallibility  en- 
ables the  Pope  to  exercise  his  power  over  the  schools. 
Bismarck  shared  the  opinion  of  Napoleon  I.  that  he  who 
has  control  of  the  school  has  the  future  of  the  country  in 
his  keeping.  He  thought  it  imperative  to  exclude  the 
Church  from  the  school,  and  therefore  passed  a  law  in  1872 
by  which  the  inspection  of  schools  was  taken  from  the 
Church  and  put  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  civil  power. 
This  was  the  beginning  of  the  struggle  between  Rome  and 
the  Prussian  Government.  In  a  famous  speech  Bismarck 
dramatically  declared  that  "  the  Empire  will  have  one  enemy 
forever,  and  that  enemy  will  be  the  Jesuits."  What  would 
he  have  said  to  the  alliance  of  the  Government  and 
Catholics  to-day  ? 

This  internal  religious  war  is  not  all. 

Everywhere  one  turns  in  Germany  one  hears  of  the  Social 
Democratic  party  ;  they  are  the  great  and  growing  factor  to 
be  reckoned  with.  Despite  this  brave  display,  the  number 
of  revolutionary  Socialists  in  Germany  is  probably  not  very 
great.  If  it  came  to  the  point,  it  is  doubtful  whether  many 
of  them  would  vote  to  abolish  private  property  or  wish  the 
production  of  manufactures  regulated  by  the  State.  That, 
at  least,  is  the  belief  of  many  who  know  the  German  work- 


322  GERMANY 

man  well,  with  his  underlying  patriotism,  his  thrift,  and  his 
love  of  order.  The  out-and-out  Socialists  of  Germany  are 
probably  about  as  numerous  and  influential  in  relation  to 
Germany  as  the  Jacobins  and  Communists  were  in  France 
a  hundred  years  ago.  Taine  has  shown  that  the  number  of 
real  Jacobins  was  small ;  but  they  were  supported  by  many 
who  were  discontented  with  the  then  existing  state  of 
things,  until  Napoleon  Bonaparte  saved  France  from  a  reign 
of  terrorism.  The  strength  of  the  Socialistic  party  in 
Germany  to-day  lies,  as  it  did  in  France  one  hundred  years 
ago,  in  the  discontent  of  the  labouring  classes,  who  do  not 
want  Socialism  so  much  as  shorter  hours  of  labour,  a 
greater  share  in  the  profits  of  industry,  better  treatment,  and 
more  consideration  from  their  employers. 

Modern  Germany  is  very  new.  It  strikes  one  as  a 
strong,  healthy  child  learning  to  walk,  and  not  quite  steady 
on  its  feet.  It  is  throwing  off  old  traditions  and  acquiring 
new  customs.  In  many  ways  the  Germans  are  in  advance 
of  Englishmen;  in  others,  behind.  In  the  education  of 
men,  in  all  technical  education,  they  are  far  in  advance  of 
us.  The  commercial  travellers'  knowledge  of  geography 
and  languages  beats  us  to  shame ;  but  as  a  rule  that  class 
have  not  the  broad  views  or  enterprising  mind  of  the 
British.  In  music  and  science  the  Germans  are  very 
thorough.  In  the  higher  education  of  women  they  have 
still  much  to  learn ;  but  there  is  at  this  moment  a  tremen- 
dous movement  towards  feminine  improvement  in  every 
way,  and  in  a  few  years  the  world  may  be  astounded  at  the 
result.  It  certainly  looks  as  if  they  were  to  be  a  great 
power  in  the  future.  The  Frauenfrage  is  the  opening  of  a 
new  era  in  the  Fatherland.  Women  may  help  to  unravel 
a  very  knotted  skein. 


GERMANY  OF  TO-DAY  323 

There  is  a  passage  of  singular  interest  in  the  Hobenlobe 
Memoirs,  recently  published,  inasmuch  as,  dating  back  as 
far  as  1848,  it  shows  that  Germany  was  then  confronted 
with  the  same  problem  that  is  before  her  to-day  :  "  Since 
the  House  of  Hohenzollern  first  stepped  forward  as  Elec- 
toral Princes  and  Sovereigns  they  have  been  marked  out  as 
the  defenders  of  Protestantism  in  Germany.  .  .  .  The 
real  peril  lies  not  in  the  parties  of  the  Communists,  Social- 
ists, and  Radicals,  who  have  existed  in  every  State  and  in 
all  ages;  not  in  the  secret  machinations  of  the  Jesuit 
Fathers  and  their  friends,  who  represent  the  stunting  of  the 
minds  of  the  people  as  the  only  salvation,  the  sole  anchor 
of  safety ;  but  in  the  fact  that  the  discontent,  of  which  each 
party  makes  such  skilful  use,  is  so  universal  and  so  well 
founded.  .  .  .  The  nation  demands  a  share  in  public 
administration  now  as  never  before.  .  .  .  It  is  a  mis- 
take to  try  to  dam  the  tide  of  revolution  by  liberal  reforms 
in  individual  States  without  reforming  Germany  as  a  whole. 
The  Free  Press  is  a  necessity ;  progress  is  a  condition  of 
the  existence  of  States.  .  .  .  It  is  a  lamentable  illusion 
with  many  well-meaning  statesmen  to  regard  progress  under 
the  existing  conditions  of  Germany  as  something  quite  in- 
nocuous. Progress  leads  to  revolution.  A  hard  saying, 
but  a  true  one  !  " 


THE  PROGRESS  OF  GERMANY  SINCE  THE 
FRANCO-PRUSSIAN  WAR 

ARTHUR  SHAD  WELL  MARTIN 

SINCE  the  re-establishment  of  the  German  Empire  in 
1871,  that  country  has  developed  and  expanded  at 
home  and  abroad  to  a  far  higher  degree  than  any 
other  Continental  nation.  This  is  due  primarily  to  the 
policy,  ambition  and  far  sighted  statesmanship  of  the  present 
Emperor,  William  II.  Although  his  plans  and  measures 
have  frequently  met  with  determined  opposition  in  the 
Reichstag^  in  the  end  he  has  always  succeeded  in  having  his 
own  way.  Though  Socialism  in  Germany  has  thrived 
greatly  under  the  somewhat  autocratic  rule  of  the  Kaiser, 
yet  the  Empire  is  incomparably  stronger  abroad  and  pros- 
perous at  home,  relatively  as  well  as  actually,  than  it  was 
in  1871. 

The  Kaiser's  energies  have  been  chiefly  directed  towards 
combating  Socialism,  acquiring  power  and  prestige  with  the 
Sublime  Porte  and  all  through  the  Levant,  founding 
colonies  in  Asia,  Africa  and  Polynesia,  perfecting  the  or- 
ganization of  a  mighty  army,  and  building  up  a  great  navy. 
In  these  aims  he  has  been  uniformly  successful. 

To  form  some  idea  of  the  progress  made  by  Germany 
since  the  war  of  1870-1871,  we  must  compare  the  figures 
of  the  various  industries  and  establishments  then  and  now. 

On  December,  1871,  the  population  of  Germany  was 
41,058,792,  of  which  number  20,154,109  were  males  :  to- 


THE  PROGRESS  OF  GERMANY     325 

day  it  is  60,605,183.  The  country  contained  5,330,000 
houses,  averaging  about  eight  persons  per  house.  The  oc- 
cupations of  the  people  are  shown  in  the  following  table 
compiled  in  1871 : 

Agriculture, 12,179,307 

Industrial, 13,407,793 

Commercial,    -------       3,256,605 

Domestics,   --------     9,569,458 

Army  and  Navy,  ------          508,413 

Other  occupations,       -----     1,751,976 

Persons  not  returned,      -     -     -     -       1,985,162 

Poor,  etc., -    -     -         437,968 

Thus  in  1871,  sixty-seven  per  cent,  of  the  population 
was  engaged  in  agriculture,  but  during  the  next  quarter  of  a 
century  farming  interests  became  subordinate  to  the  indus- 
trial. The  census  of  1895  showed  a  total  population  of 
51,770,284  with  occupations  distributed  as  follows  : 

Agriculture  and  Cattle  Rearing,     -     -     -  18,068,663 

Forestry,  Hunting,  Fishing,     -     -     -     -  432,644 

Mining  Metal  and  other  Industries,     -     -  20,253,241 

Commerce  and  Trade,    ------  5,966,846 

Domestic  and  other  Service,    -     -     -     -  886,807 

Professions,     ---------  2,835,014 

No  profession  or  occupation,    -     -     -     -  3,327,069 

In  the  iron  and  steel  manufactures,  Germany  is  now  one 
of  the  leading  nations  of  the  world,  and  in  the  manufacture 
of  beet-root  sugar  it  stands  at  the  head  of  European  coun- 
tries. The  chief  industries  include  in  addition  the  mining 
of  coal,  the  manufacture  of  coke,  machinery,  seed  oils, 
potash  salts,  the  linen  and  woollen  industries,  and  the  pro- 
duction of  beer.  There  are  also  manufactures  of  glass, 
porcelain,  and  earthenware,  clocks,  and  woodenware.  It  is 


326  GERMANY 

stated  in  a  recent  report  on  German  commerce  that,  in 
spite  of  complaints  of  increased  industrial  competition 
abroad,  of  the  stringency  of  competitive  tariffs,  and  the 
growing  cost  of  living  at  home,  there  is  general  prosperity 
and  activity  in  all  fields  of  German  industry.  An  illustra- 
tion of  manufacturing  progress  is  its  recent  development  of 
industries  in  Crefeld,  Elberfeld,  Berlin,  Chemnitz,  and 
Leipsic.  Again,  the  consumption  of  coal,  a  fair  index  of 
the  health  of  manufacturing  and  trade,  has  increased  for 
some  years  at  an  annual  rate  of  between  two  and  three 
million  tons.  German  manufacturers  have  set  up  plants  in 
Russia  and  many  Russian  industries  are  under  German 
control.  German  industrial  development  during  the  past 
twenty  years  has  been  marked  by  a  great  concentration  of 
capital  and  the  formation  of  many  large  syndicates.  These 
concerns  have  been  criticised  on  similar  grounds  to  those  on 
which  the  objections  to  trusts  in  the  United  States  have 
been  based,  but  they  seem  to  have  had  a  favourable  effect 
upon  Germany's  foreign  trade,  since  they  have  been  able, 
by  keeping  up  home  prices,  to  underbid  the  competitors  in 
foreign  markets.  This  concentration  of  capital  is  especially 
marked  in  the  electrical  industries.  During  the  same 
period  there  has  been  an  increase  of  wages,  which,  during 
the  last  ten  years,  are  said  to  have  risen  twenty  or  twenty-five 
per  cent.,  in  response  to  the  enhanced  demand  for  labour. 

The  total  value  of  the  minerals  raised  in  Germany  and 
Luxemburg  in  1905  was  1,417,000,000  marks. 

Since  1879,  Germany  has  been  protectionist  in  her  com- 
mercial policy.  In  1905,  the  duties  levied  amounted  to 
612,842,000  marks  or  eighteen  per  cent,  of  the  value  of  the 
imports  subject  to  duty.  In  1905,  the  imports  were  valued 
at  7,436,263,000  marks,  and  the  exports  at  3,841,817,000. 


THE  PROGRESS  OF  GERMANY    327 

The  principal  items  of  German  exports  are  textiles, 
metal  and  metal  wares,  cartridges,  and  percussion  caps, 
"articles  of  consumption,"  chemicals  and  drugs,  leather 
goods,  machinery,  etc.  The  principal  countries  receiving 
German  goods  in  1898  were,  in  the  order  of  importance, 
Great  Britain,  Austria-Hungary,  Russia,  the  United  States, 
the  Netherlands,  Switzerland,  France,  and  Belgium.  Ex- 
ports to  the  United  States  were  considerably  affected  by  the 
Dingley  tariffs.  Germany  has  risen  to  a  rank  second  to 
England  in  commercial  importance,  and  is  at  the  present 
time  putting  forth  the  greatest  efforts  to  increase  her  export 
trade.  German  capital  plays  an  important  part  all  over  the 
world.  German  enterprises  are  very  large  in  South  America 
and  China,  while  in  the  United  States  the  Empire's  capital 
in  railroads  alone  is  put  down  at  $180,000,0.00,  and  large 
amounts  have  been  invested  in  manufacturing  concerns, 
such  as  the  Liebig  company.  The  opinion  has  been  ex- 
pressed in  the  German  press  that  the  trip  of  Prince  Henry 
of  Prussia  from  Vladivostock  through  the  Usuri  country  to 
Khabarovsk  had  some  commercial  significance.  There  is 
already  considerable  trade  rivalry  in  eastern  Siberia,  espe- 
cially between  Germany,  Belgium,  and  France.  Germany 
has  at  present  the  advantage  in  trade.  There  are  eighty-two 
German  ships,  :  Aggregating  49,000  tons,  heading  the  list  of 
those  plying  between  Vladivostock  and  Hong  Kong, 
Shanghai,  and  Nagasaki.  Exports  to  Denmark,  however, 
suffered  a  considerable  decline  in  1899  owing  to  the  expul- 
sion of  the  Danes  from  Schleswig-Holstein.  Among  the 
causes  of  the  industrial  and  commercial  expansion  in  Ger- 
many may  be  mentioned  the  high  point  to  which  com- 
mercial education  has  been  carried  in  that  country,  and  the 
admirable  system  of  technical  and  industrial  education.  The 


328  GERMANY 

imperial  government  has  also  done  much  to  promote  foreign 
trade,  and  the  efficient  consular  and  diplomatic  service  is 
another  factor.  No  countries  have  a  better  system  for 
keeping  the  home  merchants  well  informed  as  to  the  state 
of  foreign  markets.  Wherever  German  trade  goes  there  is 
sure  to  be  an  agency  for  distributing  information  as  to  trade 
conditions.  As  to  the  import  trade,  goods  are  brought  by 
Germany  from  Great  Britain,  Russia,  the  United  States, 
Austria-Hungary,  France,  Belgium,  the  Netherlands,  and 
Switzerland,  in  the  order  of  importance. 

Inland  waterways  have  been  greatly  extended  in  recent 
years,  by  deepening  rivers  and  constructing  canals,  notwith- 
standing the  opposition  of  the  Agrarian  interests,  which  dread 
the  competition  of  English  shipping.  The  Baltic  canal 
from  Kiel  to  the  Elbe  across  the  Schleswig-Holstein  neck, 
opened  in  1895,  was  a  strategic  rather  than  a  commercial 
undertaking.  In  1904,  Germany  had  8,436  miles  of  canals 
and  inland  navigations.  On  August  n,  1899,  the  Dort- 
mund-Ems Canal  was  formally  opened  by  the  German 
Emperor.  This  canal,  about  150  miles  in  length,  starts  at 
Emden,  on  the  North  Sea,  utilizes  the  river  Ems  for  a  part 
of  its  length,  passes  through  Miinster,  and  terminates  for 
the  present  at  the  village  of  Herne,  in  Westphalia,  Dort- 
mund being  connected  at  Henrichenburg  by  a  nine-mile 
branch.  The  canal  will  accommodate  vessels  of  600  to  700 
tons  burden.  It  is  the  government's  purpose  to  make 
Emden  a  first-class  naval  port,  to  deepen  the  river-bed,  and 
build  naval  dry  docks  and  ship-yards.  The  Elbe-Trave 
Canal  was  completed  in  1901.  The  construction  of  the 
Rhine-Elbe  Canal  was  strongly  urged  by  the  Emperor,  but 
the  bill  providing  for  it  was  on  August  17,  1899,  rejected 
by  the  lower  house  of  the  Prussian  diet.  Another  ship- 


THE  PROGRESS  OF  GERMANY    329 

canal  was  recently  proposed  to  connect  Leipsic  with  Reisa, 
the  grain  centre  of  Saxony.  The  cost  was  estimated  at 
$12,000,000,  including  connection  with  the  Pleisse,  and 
improvements  of  the  harbour  in  Leipsic,  the  length  being 
forty-two  miles.  The  Main-Danube,  the  Rhine-Rhone, 
the  Rhine-Marne,  and  many  other  canals,  ramify  through 
the  country,  and  connect  with  foreign  waterways. 

When  Germany  again  became  an  Empire,  she  had  no 
colonies,  and  notwithstanding  the  energetic  measures  adopted 
by  the  present  Emperor,  the  results  have  been  showy  rather 
than  satisfactory.  Bismarck  was  unwilling  to  engage  in  an 
aggressive  colonial  policy  out  of  consideration  for  the  sus- 
ceptibilities of  France  and  England,  and  of  wholesome 
respect  for  their  navies,  with  which  he  could  not  hope  to 
cope.  It  was  not  till  1884,  that  Germany  seized  territory 
in  Africa.  These  districts  are  known  as  Togoland  and 
Kamerun.  From  1884  to  1890,  German  Southwest  Africa 
and  German  East  Africa  were  annexed.  In  1885  anc^  1886, 
the  German  flag  was  planted  in  Polynesia  on  the  Solomon 
and  Marshall  Islands,  Kaiser  William's  Land  in  New 
Guinea,  and  the  Bismarck  Archipelago.  In  1899,  the  end- 
ing of  tripartite  control  in  Samoa  by  Germany,  Great 
Britain,  and  the  United  States  resulted,  upon  the  retirement 
of  England,  in  the  acquisition  by  Germany  of  the  islands 
of  Savaii  and  Upolu,  while  the  United  States  received  the  im- 
portant island  Tutuila.  Besides  these  islands,  Germany 
added  to  her  colonial  possessions  by  purchase  from  Spain  the 
Caroline,  Pelew,  and  Ladrone,  or  Marianne,  groups  in  the 
Pacific.  In  the  latter  archipelago  the  island  of  Guam,  having 
been  acquired  by  the  United  States  in  the  Spanish-American 
war  of  1898,  was  excepted  in  the  German  purchase.  The 
other  German  dependencies  in  the  Pacific  are  the  Bismarck 


330  GERMANY 

archipelago,  Kaiser  William's  Land,  on  the  island  of  New 
Guinea,  or  Papua,  the  Marshall  islands,  and  the  remainder  of 
the  Solomon  group.  The  acquisition  of  the  island  terri- 
tories is  a  step  in  line  with  the  German  Emperor's  policy  of 
providing  stations  for  the  growing  German  navy  and  for  the 
benefit  of  the  Empire's  extensive  foreign  trade.  The  gov- 
ernment has  recently  given  special  attention  to  its  large 
and  important  African  possessions,  and  is  encouraging 
their  development  as  a  source  of  supply  for  the  mother 
country. 

In  1898,  as  indemnification  for  the  treatment  of  her 
missionaries  in  China,  Germany  received  a  ninety-nine 
years'  lease  of  Kiao-Chao  Bay,  and  special  privileges  of 
trade  and  influence  in  that  province. 

The  German  mercantile  marine  has  increased  enormously 
since  the  war  with  France.  In  1872,  she  owned  4,354  sail- 
ing vessels  with  a  tonnage  of  892,000,  and  175  steamers, 
97,000  tons.  In  that  year  the  merchant  fleet  was  only  half 
as  large  as  that  of  France ;  now  it  is  more  than  double  the 
size.  In  1900,  the  number  of  sailing  vessels  had  fallen  to 
2,446,  of  632,000  tonnage  ;  and  the  total  of  steamers  had 
risen  to  1,293,  °^  1*864,000  tonnage.  Germany  now 
ranks  second  on  the  list  to  the  maritime  countries  of  the 
world. 

In  1871,  the  German  navy  was  almost  a  negligible 
quantity  :  now  it  ranks  fourth  on  the  list  of  Great  Powers. 
In  May,  1907,  there  were  built  or  building  29  battleships; 
eight  iron-clad  Coast  Defence  ships  ;  15  large  cruisers  (nine 
armoured,  six  protected);  37  small  cruisers ;  10  gunboats; 
68  large  torpedo  boats  ;  72  small  torpedo  boats  (47  up  to 
date) ;  a  number  of  special  ships  and  gunboats  of  no  great 
fighting  value ;  and  a  number  of  submarines.  The  per- 


THE  PROGRESS  OF  GERMANY     331 

sonnel  consists  of  1,700  officers ;  269  engineer  officers ; 
221  surgeons;  180  paymasters;  1,883  warrant  officers; 
8,985  petty  officers;  29,316  seamen;  and  1,100  ship's 
boys ;  total  43,654. 


STATISTICS 

E.  S. 

THE  Empire  of  Germany  occupies  the  central  por- 
tion of  Europe  with  an  area  of  208,830  square 
miles.  The  census  of  1905  gives  a  total  popula- 
tion of  60,605,183,  of  which  29,868,096  are  males.  In 
1900  the  religious  denominations  were  computed  as  follows : 
35,231,104  Protestants;  20,327,913  Roman  Catholics; 
203,793  Christians  of  other  categories  ;  586,833  Jews ;  and 
17,535  of  other  religions  and  unknown. 

The  reigning  Emperor  is  a  Hohenzollern.  This  family 
traces  its  descent  from  Count  Thassilo  who  lived  about  the 
beginning  of  the  Ninth  Century  and  founded  a  castle  on  the 
Zollern  heights  near  Hechingen.  The  mountainous  terri- 
tory of  Hohenzollern,  a  province  of  Prussia,  lies  between 
Wiirtemberg  and  Baden,  and  consists  of  about  440  square 
miles.  It  is  watered  by  the  Neckar  and  Danube.  The  pop- 
ulation, consisting  of  about  65,752,  is  almost  exclusively 
Roman  Catholic,  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Archbishop 
of  Freiburg. 

About  1165  the  Hohenzollern  family  divided  in  two 
branches :  Frederick  IV.,  founding  the  Swabian  or  elder 
branch ;  and  Konrad  I.  the  Franconian,  or  younger.  In 
1576,  the  elder  line  was  sub-divided  into  the  branches  of 
Hohenzollern-Hechingen  and  Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen. 
The  Kings  of  Prussia  are  descended  from  the  younger 
branch;  for  Frederick  VI.,  the  representative  of  the 


WILLIAM  II.,  EMPEROR  OF  GERMANY 


STATISTICS  333 

younger  line,  received  in  1415  from  the  Emperor  Sigis- 
mund  the  investiture  of  the  Electorate  of  Brandenburg,  thus 
founding  the  present  dynasty  of  Prussia.  The  two 
branches  of  the  elder  line,  Hohenzollern-Hechingen  and 
Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen,  continued  unbroken  until  1849, 
when,  in  accordance  with  a  family  compact  made  in  1821, 
which  declared  the  King  of  Prussia  chief  of  the  joint 
houses,  the  reigning  princes  of  Hohenzollern-Heckingen 
and  Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen  ceded  their  rights  and  prin- 
cipalities to  the  King  of  Prussia  who  agreed  to  pay  an  an- 
nual pension  of  15,000  thalers  to  the  first  and  of  25,000  to 
the  latter,  the  princes  retaining  their  estates  and  the  title  of 
highness,  but  to  exercise  no  act  of  sovereignty. 

The  first  Emperor  of  the  new  German  Empire  was  Will- 
iam I.  (Friedrich  Ludwig  Wilhelm),  King  of  Prussia,  the 
second  son  of  Frederick  William  II.  (born  in  1797).  He  as- 
cended the  throne  of  Prussia  in  1861  and  crowned  himself 
with  his  own  hands.  In  1867,  he  became  the  head  of  the 
North  German  Confederation,  and  during  the  Franco-Prus- 
sian war  commanded  at  the  decisive  battles  of  Gravelotte  and 
Sedan.  On  January  18,  1871,  William  was  proclaimed 
Emperor  of  Germany  in  the  palace  of  the  French  Kings  at 
Versailles.  In  1829,  he  married  Maria  Louise  of  Saxe- 
Weimar.  Their  son,  Frederick  William  (born  in  1831), 
succeeded  to  the  throne  on  his  father's  death  in  March, 
1888;  but,  suffering  at  the  time  of  his  accession  from 
cancer  of  the  throat,  died  in  a  few  weeks.  He  was 
educated  at  the  University  of  Bonn,  and  in  1866  com- 
manded the  left  Prussian  wing  of  the  army  in  Silesia.  He 
commanded  the  troops  of  Bavaria,  Wurtemberg  and  Baden 
in  the  Franco-Prussian  War.  Greatly  beloved,  especially  by 
the  army,  he  received  the  popular  nicknames  of  "  Our 


334  GERMANY 

Fritz"  and  "Frederick  the  Noble."  In  1858,  he  married 
Victoria,  the  eldest  daughter  of  Queen  Victoria  of  England. 
He  left  two  sons,  William  II.  and  Prince  Henry,  and  four 
daughters. 

William  II.  (Friedrich  Wilhelm  Victor  Albrecht  von 
Hohenzollern),  Emperor  of  Germany  and  King  of  Prussia, 
the  eldest  son  of  Frederick  III.  and  Victoria,  eldest  daughter 
of  Queen  Victoria  of  England,  was  born  January  27,  1859. 
He  was  educated  at  the  gymnasium  of  Cassel  and  the  Uni- 
versity of  Bonn,  after  which  he  received  a  thorough  military 
training  and  was  promoted  major-general  in  1888.  In  this 
year,  he  succeeded  his  father.  In  1881,  he  married  the 
Princess  Augusta  Victoria  of  Schleswig-Holstein-Sonder- 
burg-Augustenburg  (born  in  1858).  Their  silver  wedding 
was  celebrated  on  February  25,  1906.  Their  son,  the 
Crown  Prince,  Friedrich  Wilhelm  (born  in  1882),  came  of 
age  in  1900,  and  in  1905  married  the  Duchess  Cecilia  of 
Mecklenburg-Schwerin  (born  in  1886).  The  Emperor  has 
four  other  sons  :  Wilhelm,  Adelbert,  August  and  Joachim, 
and  a  daughter,  Victoria  Louise. 

The  emperor's  talents  are  numerous  and  varied  and  his 
energies  are  unbounded.  Of  him  George  W.  Steevens 
aptly  says:  "  His  abilities  are  unquestioned;  his  sincerity 
and  honesty  of  intention,  to  my  mind,  beyond  suspicion. 
His  worst  enemy  could  not  accuse  him  of  not  knowing  his 
own  mind.  His  energy  well  nigh  amounts  to  a  wonder  of 
nature.  His  hand  is  in  every  detail  of  government :  he  can 
ride  in  icy  rain  all  day  at  the  head  of  his  cavalry,  transact 
business  in  the  afternoon,  attend  a  banquet  and  stagger 
Europe  with  a  drink-speech,  and  then  go  off  to  sleep  in  his 
special  train,  and  do  the  same  thing  next  day  and  the  next 
and  the  next.  There  are  all  sorts  of  stories  about  mysteri- 


STATISTICS  335 

ous  maladies,  but  whatever  may  or  may  not  be  affecting  him 
has  certainly  not  curtailed  his  powers  of  work." 

The  ministry  is  as  follows :  Imperial  Chancellor  and 
Prussian  Premier,  Prince  von  Billow ;  Interior,  Count 
von  Posadowsky-Wehner ;  Foreign  Affairs,  Herr  von 
Tschirrschky  und  Bogendorff;  Navy,  Admiral  vonTirpitz; 
Justice,  Herr  Nieberding ;  Imperial  Treasury,  Baron  von 
Stengel ;  Posts  and  Telegraphs,  Herr  Kraetke  ;  President 
Imperial  Railways  Department,  Dr.  Schulz ;  German  Am- 
bassador to  Austria,  Count  Karl  von  Wedel ;  to  Italy, 
Count  von  Monts ;  to  France,  Prince  von  Radolin ;  to 
Turkey,  Baron  Marschall  von  Bieberstein ;  to  Russia,  Herr 
von  Schon  ;  to  Japan,  Baron  Mumm  von  Schwartzenstein ; 
to  Great  Britain,  Count  Paul  Wolff-Metternich  ;  to  the 
United  States  of  America,  Baron  Speck  von  Stern  berg. 

The  two  legislative  bodies  of  the  Empire  are  Bundes- 
rath,  the  members  of  which  are  appointed ;  and  the  Reich- 
stag, the  members  of  which  are  elected  by  universal  suffrage. 

The  commerce  of  the  Empire  is  under  the  administration 
and  guidance  of  special  laws  and  rules,  emanating  from  the 
Zollverein,  or  Customs  League,  which  since  1888,  em- 
braces practically  the  whole  of  the  states  of  Germany,  and 
also  the  two  free  ports  of  Hamburg  and  Bremen. 

Since  1873,  the  unit  of  reckoning  is  the  mark  (consisting 
of  100  pfennig).  The  standard  is  an  imperial  gold  coin  of 
ten  marks. 

By  the  constitution  of  the  German  Empire  (16  April, 
1871)  the  land  forces  of  all  the  states  of  Germany  form  a 
united  army  under  the  command  of  the  Emperor.  The 
German  army  thus  includes  the  contingents  of  Prussia, 
Bavaria,  Saxony,  Wurtemberg,  Baden,  and  minor  states,  all 
raised  and  organized  on  the  Prussian  model. 


336  GERMANY 

The  reputation  of  the  Prussian  army  dates  from  the  wars 
of  Frederick  the  Great ;  but  it  owed  its  origin  to  his 
father,  Frederick  William  L,  aided  by  Prince  Maurice  of 
Dessau,  who  especially  perfected  the  infantry.  Under 
Frederick  the  Great  the  cavalry  soon  rivalled  it.  A 
Prussian  army  corps  consists  of  a  staff,  two  infantry  divi- 
sions, a  cavalry  brigade,  a  regiment  (seven  batteries)  a 
corps  artillery,  a  regiment  of  engineers,  and  a  number  of 
administrative  services. 

The  infantry  is  classed  as  guards,  grenadiers,  fusiliers  and 
line.  The  nine  regiments  of  guards  are  composed  of 
picked  men.  The  uniform  of  the  Prussian  army  is  a  dark 
blue  tunic,  grey  trousers  with  red  stripe,  helmet  of  black 
leather  with  brass  ornaments  and  spike  (Pickelhaube\  and 
boots  into  which  the  trousers  are  generally  tucked  for 
marching.  The  different  army  corps  are  distinguished  by 
the  colour  of  the  shoulder  cords.  The  large  knapsack  is 
brown  calfskin,  shaped  to  fit  the  back.  The  belts  of  the 
grenadier  and  line  regiments  are  white,  those  of  the  fusiliers, 
black. 

The  cavalry  consists  of  cuirassiers,  dragoons,  Uhlans,  or 
lancers,  and  hussars.  The  light  cavalry  (hussars  and 
dragoons)  are  armed  with  breech-loading  carbines  and 
swords.  The  cuirassiers  wear  a  heavy  black  cuirass, 
weighing  sixteen  pounds  and  carry  a  long  heavy  sword 
(Pallascb).  The  Uhlans  carry  both  lance  and  sword. 
Great  attention  is  paid  to  the  selection  of  horses.  As  a 
rule,  the  Prussian  soldier  is  not  above  the  average  in  size ; 
the  guards  and  some  of  the  regiments  are,  however,  of  ex- 
ceptionally fine  appearance.  By  the  present  military  law  of 
the  German  Empire,  every  German  capable  of  bearing 
arms  belongs  to  the  army  for  seven  years,  from  the  age 


AUGUSTA  VICTORIA,  EMPRESS  OF  GERMANY 


STATISTICS  337 

of  twenty-one;  and  afterwards  to  the  Landwekr  for  five 
years. 

Those  young  men  who  are  exempted  in  their  third  year 
are  passed  into  the  Ersatz  reserve,  where  they  undergo  no 
training  and  are  free  of  service  in  time  of  peace ;  but  in  war 
time  they  are  called  out  and  sent  to  the  depots  to  replace 
casualties  in  the  regular  army.  The  Ersatz  reserve  is  also 
composed  of  other  exemptions,  such  as  men  below  the 
regulation  standard,  sons  of  widows,  etc. 

The  Prussian  army  is  composed  of  field  troops  who  form 
the  standing  army  in  time  of  peace,  and  who  in  war  time 
are  increased  by  reserves ;  Depot  troops  (Ersatztruppen^who 
have  no  existence  in  time  of  peace  ;  and  garrison  troops 
(Besatzungstrupperi)  principally  composed  of  the  Landwehr. 

Under  the  new  Army  Law  passed  on  April  i,  1905,  many 
additions  are  being  made,  the  object  being  to  increase  the 
annual  strength  on  a  peace  footing  until  it  reaches  the  num- 
ber of  505,839  men  during  the  financial  year  1909,  at  which 
figure  it  is  to  be  maintained  up  to  March  31,  1910. 
Prussia  will  contribute  392,979  men;  Bavaria,  55,424; 
Saxony,  37,711  ;  and  Wurtemberg,  19,725. 

The  war  strength  is  approximately  4,330,000  men,  in- 
cluding the  field  army  and  its  reserve  formations,  1,700,000; 
the  Landwehr,  1,800,000  ;  trained  men  of  the  Landsturm^ 
800,000 ;  and  30,000  trained  men  of  the  Ersatz  reserve. 

The  organization  of  the  German  Navy  was  changed  in 
1871  and  further  reorganized  in  1889.  The  administration 
is  under  a  naval  secretary  of  state,  who  is  under  the  chan- 
cellor of  the  Empire.  The  chief  command  is,  however, 
vested  in  a  naval  officer.  The  fleet  is  divided  between  sta- 
tions in  the  Baltic  and  stations  in  the  North  Sea,  the  chief 
points  being  Kiel  in  the  former  and  Wilhelmshaven  in  the 


338  GERMANY 

latter,  connected  by  the  Kaiser  Wilhelm  Canal  from  Kiel 
to  the  Elbe,  which  was  opened  in  1895.  Germany  builds 
her  own  ships,  at  dock  yards  in  Kiel,  Wilhelmshaven  and 
Dantzig.  The  national  colours  are  black,  white  and  red, 
in  three  horizontal  stripes  of  equal  width.  The  eagle  is 
the  national  military  standard  of  Prussia.  The  Order  of 
the  Black  Eagle,  founded  by  the  Elector  of  Brandenburg, 
on  January  17,  1701,  the  day  of  his  coronation  as  King  of 
Prussia,  is  the  highest  order  in  Prussia.  No  member  of  it, 
with  the  exception  of  foreign  princes  and  Knights  of  St. 
John,  is  permitted  to  wear  any  other  order  with  it.  No 
one  who  has  been  decorated  with  it,  is  permitted  to  travel 
more  than  twenty  miles  from  Court  without  giving  notice. 
Knights  of  the  Black  Eagle  are  also  Knights  of  the  Red 
Eagle  (first  class).  The  Order  of  the  Red  Eagle  was 
founded  in  1734  by  the  markgraf  George  Frederick  Charles, 
as  a  reorganization  of  the  "  Ordre  de  la  Sincerite.  It  was 
reorganized  in  1810,  when  two  more  classes  were  added 
to  it. 


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